SnowBlind
by Molly1
Summary: Finally last chapter! Seduction, Sex and Rage-Years after the Labyrinth Sarah starts to see things again. When running from her abusive husband and staying with her aunt someone familiar shows her the darkness in the Snowblind.
1. Chapter One

SnowBlind   
  
  
Chapter One   
  
Up at the top of the linen closet, she had a box of letters that she had written,   
folded, placed into scented envelopes, and never sent out. They were just left there, in a   
floral box with a fitted top, hidden behind last years New Year's Eve decorations and a big   
Birthday hat from her 22nd.   
  
God how time flew by.   
  
When she was alone at home Sarah would take the box down, being careful to set   
the decorations and party favors inside the closet, just in case Brian came home early. He   
didn't usually. He'd be out late, with the boys, losing what little money they had left.   
Sarah had dark circles under her eyes from the late nights, and the fights, and the credit   
cards that were cut at the check-out lines.   
  
But when she was alone she would take out her best stationary, the kind she kept   
hidden beneath the clothes in her underwear drawer, and write in a floating script that she   
never used in the classroom. She would write, letting her pen form the words before her   
mind could stop it, and then never read it. But she knew who she wrote to... she wrote to   
Him every time.   
  
Then she'd seal the letter safely in a matching envelope, put it in the box with the   
others and replace her owl-quill pen as if nothing had ever happened. By the time Brian   
came home, a foul stench of beer and cigars over the clothes that he tossed carelessly on   
the floor of the comfortable bedroom, she would be laying in bed. Not asleep, but   
pretending.   
  
She didn't like to make love when he was drunk, or after he had lost. More often   
than not, both had occurred prior to him coming home. She laid in the bed, shivering   
inside herself and waiting. Most often Brian would just lay down and, snoring, drift into   
sleep. But there were times, horrible times that made her want to run far, far away....   
  
"Sugar," he whispered against her ear.   
  
Sarah tried to move away from him, bringing her shoulder up to rub against her   
jawline. In the kitchen the sink was dripping, echoing against a sullen pot. Brian looped   
his large finger under her hair, pulled it back and then ran his hand along her soft skin.   
She smelled like Kiwi and Strawberries, and Brian buried his face into her hair.   
  
"Its late," she finally mumbled.   
  
"So?"   
  
Sarah rolled on to her back, the silk of her pajamas making a soft rustle against the   
linen. She smiled, and let him kiss her, bruising her lips against her teeth. His breath   
tasted stale and sour, and she moved away to avoid gagging. Brian reached out, jerking   
her head back and looked into her widened hazel eyes.   
  
"What are you thinking?!" He demanded, running a single finger down her neck,   
to her collarbone and stopping at the first pearly white button on her purple night shirt.   
  
*Drip, Drip*   
  
Sarah threw the sheets aside and, in one quick movement, was out from under her   
husband. Brian observed her calmly from the bed, but she could sense the fury mounting   
behind his pale blue eyes. The same eyes that she had fallen in love with four years ago...   
as a grad student with high aspirations and no experience.   
  
"I'm not doing this, Brian!" Sarah stated vehemently.   
  
He lifted himself effortlessly from the bed, easy and light on his feet. He was a   
large man, an overpowering man, but he was so slender and graceful in his walking. It   
reminded Sarah of someone else, somehow who had never received any of a few dozen   
letters stowed away with her sheets and memories of New Years resolutions.   
  
"What, sugarpie, aren't you gonna do?" he asked.   
  
"This!" She gestured between the two of them to indicate just what 'this' was.   
  
He leapt at her and she barely missed the outstretched hands that clawed against   
her shirt. One button popped off, and Sarah screamed. She screamed and screamed as   
she opened the bedroom door, and screamed as she flailed into the living room, running   
her hands over the wall for a light switch.   
  
"Fucking Bitch!"   
  
His words were met with a resounding "smack" of his hand against her face. She   
jarred backwards, hitting the wall, and the picture of their small family fell from its nail.   
Sarah yelped, and the glass broke, scattering over the top of their black and white   
television set.   
  
The handprint burned bright against her pale flesh. "How dare you!" she   
whispered as she touched her cheek, feeling every tear and every lonely moment of their   
marriage together in the act of violence.   
  
"Get back into the bedroom!"   
  
"Fuck you!" She screamed and tore one of the two antennas from the top of her   
TV completely off. The wire crackled and sparked, and a fine gray line of smoke   
interrupted the cool darkness.   
  
Blinded by fury Sarah jerked out with enough force to jab the point of the antenna   
into Brian's outstretched hand. And, for some divine reason, it pierced straight through   
the flesh and muscle, tearing the ligament and tendons in the process for his ring and   
middle finger. The two fell, useless, against the palm of his hand as he held it up and   
looked at the injury incredulously.   
  
Sarah stood still, her breath coming in and out in short gasps as she watched,   
unbelieving, as the blood dripped from Brian's hand. It was a trick, she was sure, but   
somehow she knew that she had done something. *Drip, Drip*   
  
The Damn sink!   
  
"Don't you ever fucking touch me! Don't you ever lay your hand on me! You   
BASTARD!" she screamed, doubling over as tears broke her vindicating words.   
  
Brian was silent, but his blue eyes moved around the room as he held his hand in   
the other, wondering what to do. Sarah spotted the phone first and rushed to it, jerking   
the cord out. She held the little cream phone in her hand, Brian with his wide blue eyes   
was unsuspecting. Of course she wouldn't do it.   
  
"B-Baby?" he asked, holding his hand out as if she hadn't seen or noticed just what   
had happened to him. The fingers swayed as he jerked it out, exposing the wound. His   
thumb was twitching, ticking to the beat of the dripping sink hitting a pot that was still   
dirty from dinner.   
  
"I'm going now, Brian. I'm going to go away and you can stay here and play your   
CARD games with the boys as much as you want!" she hissed.   
  
Brian didn't move. He just looked at her and at his hand, then back to her. She   
felt her cheeks burning in her rage, fiery red against her skin, blotching out the handprint.   
She was shivering outside now, her hand that held the telephone shaking uncontrollably.   
Brian was trembling too, and his finger was moving.... back and forth and back and forth.   
  
"Stop!" she screamed and dropped the phone. Brian seemed startled out of his   
self-pitying as he heard the phone ring once, as if in a dying moment. He looked at it,   
looked at his hand, and then snarled.   
  
Sarah backed away, hearing the sound like an animal from the man she had   
thought she had loved. She tried to grab at the phone, but he kicked it away, and it struck   
the far wall like a football. Brian held his hand out again and, grimacing in some horrible   
pain, jerked the broken antenna out.   
  
It cracked against something. It cracked and he winced and doubled in pain. And   
that was the only reason he didn't kill his wife that evening with booze and money on his   
mind. He bent over, crying like a puppy who'd been kicked, and wiping blood against his   
new wranglers. The jeans he just had to have.   
  
"You aren't going nowhere!" he bit out between sobs and gasps.   
  
Sarah reached behind herself, feeling a door handle, and opened the door. Inside   
she could smell fresh laundry and touched the gentle sheets that she laid on the beds every   
other week. It seemed fitting to be the linen closet.   
  
"Sarah! Get back here!" Brain demanded as he staggered upright, toppling   
backwards, awash in pain. Sarah heard him clatter into the easy chair, and overturn it.   
The TV toppled from its stand, and erupted with a single dull pop. Soon there would be   
nothing left.   
  
She grabbed the New Years Eve decorations, tossing them into the living room   
without a single care if her husband was angered or not. Then, seeing the box, the heavy   
and blunt box, she jumped and jarred it with the tip of her longest finger. It moved   
forward, and so did Brian. Once more she jumped, and again the box tilted towards her.   
  
"SARAH!" he screamed.   
  
*Drip, Drip*   
  
God, God, the fucking sink. Ohmigawd, ohgod.... the sink, the damn sink he   
never fixed! He's up, oh god he's up. God, God, please. Oh god, please!   
  
He touched her hair. She felt him barely brush his brutally lumpy fingers against   
her dark chestnut locks and the box fell. Sarah grabbed it, as if catching a long pass, and   
then turned. He moved back, again one of the only reasons for her not winding up laying   
in a puddle of her own blood. He was frightened, she had already inflicted a severe injury   
on him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted anymore.   
  
"Brian!" she yelled.   
  
In the light of the moon his eyes were like shards of glass. They were so pale that   
it seemed the whites never ended, until the huge pupil started. She saw his eyes, tried to   
see his soul, and saw only the black depth of the pupil staring back. There was nothing   
else left. Nothing worth trying to save.   
  
"Here's to redemption!" she proclaimed.   
  
He cringed back, just enough as she brought the box down against the back of his   
head, that he fell into the sofa. It was fitting. He spent the most of his time laying on his   
back. In the kitchen the sink continued to drip, and drip, and drip. Sarah merely stood   
there, in the middle of the living room, holding the box tightly.   
  
Brian's scalp was bleeding, where she had hit it. And he was looking around the   
room, dazed and completely unaware of what had just happen. The power had been   
switched. She had taken control of a life that she hadn't known to be hers for four long   
years... ever since he, Brian, entered it.   
  
"Fix the Goddamn sink!" she demanded.   
  
The clock began to chime.. chiming.... chiming. "Midnight" Sarah muttered to   
herself as she looked at the hands against the light blue face. Almost the same color as   
Brain's wandering eyes. Then she remembered him, and noticed him reaching out to the   
coffee table to get up. He wouldn't lose easily.   
  
Gotta Go, Gotta Go... go... go... go!   
  
Sarah repeated the simple word in her head again and again, like a mantra to make   
her feet move. She wanted, more than anything else, to be out of the house, but somehow   
there was some poor damaged part of her that wanted to stay and bandage his wounds and   
accept his punishments... however mortally dangerous they might be. She fought that part   
with the repetition, in beat with the leak in the sink.   
  
Sarah found her purse, fumbling over it in the dark, and searched out her car keys   
from his. The last thing she wanted was to drive away in his Ford F-350 while Brian was   
laying half-comatose in their shared living room.... Not anymore. She was gone.. she   
would go, she was going.   
  
She pushed herself through the door, not looking back and letting it slam closed.   
A white door, a little white door on a cream-colored house, with a lawn and a flower bed.   
She had wanted all of that, and had wanted to be married. And her job! Her job!   
  
She paused, looking at the house from the driveway, where she had left her little   
vehicle parked. It wasn't anything much, just a used mustang that had come to be a little   
under 5 grand, when everything was taken into consideration. But it had low mileage,   
and....   
  
"What am I going to do?!" Sarah asked herself, asked the night, asked anyone who   
would hear her. But no one was out at midnight, no one was there, except for Him. "Are   
you listening to me? Are you watching me?"   
  
Of course He didn't answer, He never did. But she wrote her letters to Him   
almost every night of her married life. Sarah realized, in mild shock that the box of letters   
was under her arm. There was no going back... she only could move forward.   
  
She glanced over her shoulder once as she pulled out the car key and jumped   
inside. Somehow, through all she had survived, she was sure that he would get her as she   
was driving off. Brian would storm out of the house with his shotgun and blow her away   
while she was driving. Then it would really be over.   
  
Gotta go, go...go! Gotta Go!!   
  
She revved the engine, thankful that it kicked into life immediately, and then   
backed out of the driveway. Brian didn't barge through the front door with a shotgun, nor   
did she see him race out to his truck to track her down. However, the entire time she   
drove on the interstate, wondering just where she was going to go, she watched her   
rear-view mirror and waited....


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two   
  
Sarah awakened in a bed, in a room she didn't recognize, and for a moment   
couldn't breath. She saw Brian in her mind, slipping under the sheets of her bed and   
touching her leg with cold hands, wet with blood. Sarah leapt out of the starched sheets   
and frantically ran to the window.   
  
She threw it open, gasping in the cool morning air and looked out. Below her,   
two or three floors, was a pool with little children running around it. They had bright   
orange inflatable arm cuffs around their forearm, making them seem unnaturally slender.   
Sarah watched, with a smile, and then let the silky drapes sweep back over the window, as   
they were sucked into the breeze.   
  
Her keys and purse were laying on the table, with the "room service" menu that   
proudly boasted "Denny's" on the cover. Sarah ran her fingertips over the sticky surface,   
smelling syrup in her mind without having to bring her fingers to her nose. Then, pausing   
in front of the mirror to look at herself with nothing but her bra and underwear, she felt   
the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.   
  
It was a strangely sensational feeling that ducked into the very center of her gut.   
Sarah smiled, but shivered as she remained poised before the image of herself. As if she   
had been punched, the elation faded, and she reached up to touch her cheek where a   
brown and painfully blue bruise had spread beneath her eye.   
  
"Where am I going?" Sarah asked herself, as she rubbed her hands across her   
sweaty face.   
  
With a sigh and a stretch she looked at the mirror again and felt herself go cold.   
He was lingering by the window, his pale blonde hair cast in ribbons around his feral   
features. The King lifted his eyes, acknowledged her shock, and then smiled. His   
passiveness faded, and his eyes darkened almost making the entire hotel room grow black.   
  
"Jareth!" Sarah rushed out breathlessly as she turned around.   
  
But He wasn't there. He had never been there. She had taken intense   
psychological therapies in order to convince herself of the fact that He was nothing more   
than a figment of her imagination. She had created him and so... had also uncreated him.   
But why did it seem that she could almost taste his magic in the air lately?   
  
She suddenly felt very exposed in her underclothes and ducked quickly into the   
bathroom, passing by the snowy white owl feather lilting from the stagnant air onto the   
dull tan carpeting.   
  
~*~   
  
"Listen, Jenene, I just need a place to stay for a little while," Sarah explained,   
switching her cell phone from one ear to the other as she made a turn onto another street   
that she didn't recognize.   
  
Jenene was quiet for some time, tripping over her words before they even came   
out of her mouth. "It's not that Ryan and I wouldn't be overjoyed to have you here,   
Sarah, but the inlaws are visiting... God, this is awful." Jenene sounded only partly   
sincere, but that part was convincing. Sarah almost felt as if she should have been the one   
to apologize.   
  
"I feel like I need to be pretty far, ya know. Oh, Jenene, listen. It's no biggie. I'll   
call Carla, I think I'm getting nearer to Wilamette anyway," Sarah explained, looking   
longly at the green sign post that was anything but the quiet suburb, Wilamette, where her   
and Brian's mutual friend lived.   
  
"Hey, if you need anything..."   
  
"Yeah, a new life. Thanks, Jenene."   
  
Sarah hung up the phone, tossing it carelessly over to the passenger seat. Her   
friends were mostly all at their jobs, behind desks, in offices, or taking screaming kids to   
school in massive carpools. Nothing like Sarah, nothing at all. And they wanted to keep   
their lives safe and secure in their two-story-white-picket-fenced houses with garden   
gnomes and pink flamingos. What they all wanted least of all was a threat.... and one that   
could bring trouble with her.   
  
"Don't blame them much," Sarah remarked.   
  
The scenery was anything but interesting as she exited the city limits, and passed   
by countless numbers of dry crops. It was strangely dry for such a cold day, and clear.   
The clouds skirted over the mountain range behind her, and the sun was lazy in the   
sapphire sky.   
  
A horn blared and Sarah blinked as she returned her full attention to the road. In a   
desperate reaction she swerved back to her lane, barely missing a speeding semi billowing   
dust from its large canvas, securing its cargo. Sarah overcorrected, hit the ditch on the   
side with her front right wheel, and just barely yanked herself back on to the poorly paved   
road.   
  
"Shit!" she screamed, her tire suddenly nonexistent as it bounced completely out of   
the ditch and into the field she had been observing earlier.   
  
Once again she swerved to avoid hitting on-coming traffic, another semi, and then   
slammed on the brakes. Her car turned half-way around, then came to a screeching halt,   
making the world stop spinning before her eyes. Sarah gripped the steering wheel, and,   
jerkingly, glanced in her rear-view mirror. The tire was still rolling through the dried   
crops.   
  
She breathed, and breathed, and then finally realizing what had happened, opened   
the car door. Outside it had begun to feel warmer, as the sun moved to its zenith. Sarah   
didn't bother to take the keys out, just put her car into park and walked out on to the   
barren stretch of highway. For some ungodly reason the only traffic had been those two   
trucks, and they had caused all her problems.   
  
"Now what?" she asked herself and then, kicking one of the good wheels directed   
her voice skywards, "NOW WHAT?!"   
  
Sarah leaned her back against the side of the car and thought over her options.   
But, as she thought, she realized there was only one remaining... walk. She reached in and   
grabbed her purse and, considering the necessity for a moment, finally took the keys out of   
the ignition, if only to stop the car from beeping at her.   
  
She looked back the way she had come and estimated the town to be at least five   
miles away through all the damn crops. Then, glancing over her shoulder, she paused. A   
great looming red sign that said but one word: GAS, was only a few hundred yards in the   
distance. And while she hadn't remembered seeing it while driving, Sarah ignored any   
nervous feelings.   
  
Where there was a gas station, there would be mechanics... at least she hoped for   
as much. With as much that had already gone wrong during the day, Sarah decided that   
she was overdue for some good luck.   
  
She walked briskly in the cool weather, her eyes fixed on the empty gas station, all   
save one red pick-up truck and a blue Chevy that was up on a lift in a lean-to shed that   
served as their repairs station... and as she neared she saw a whole tower of tires against   
one edge of the shed.   
  
"Thank god!" she muttered and sprinted the rest of the way.   
  
She came upon the one-pump station, a bit winded but also exhilarated after the   
wind. After jogging daily for the last three months, she assumed she could take a little run   
now and then. "Hello?" Sarah called, as she avoided one empty gas container, with a   
broken spout.   
  
There wasn't an answer, persay, but she could hear a drill start up and male voices   
from inside the shed. Sarah jogged over and, pushing the sliding door open a little more,   
peered inside. "Hello?" she asked again, and one man in greasy and oil-stained blue   
overalls tipped his sweaty hat towards her.   
  
"What can we do for you?" he asked, and she tried to ignore the way his eyes   
wandered away from her face.   
  
Another man rolled out from under the car, and nodded towards her before   
slipping back under. "My car... its down the street a little bit but, it lost a tire out in one   
of those fields."   
  
The overall man nodded and then chewed on something in his mouth. Sarah just   
assumed that it was chewing tobacco. Then, sighing, he reached into one of his many   
pockets and fished out some keys on a piece of worn rawhide. He was, obviously, the   
truck's owner. "Be right back."   
  
"Thank you," Sarah managed, before he ducked into the tow truck and cranked   
the engine over, as if fighting with it to start. He won the battle, but Sarah had a sinking   
feeling that, in the long run, he would lose the war with the truck.   
  
"You wouldn't happen to have a phone, would you?" Sarah inquired, wondering   
what had possessed her to leave her cell phone back at the car. Probably would become   
Mr. Overall's property before the day was through. Somehow she didn't care very much.   
  
"In the office." The man under the car started another contraption, that plunked   
and clanked into something. As far as cars went, Sarah knew how to drive, and was   
satisfied with her limited knowledge in any other aspect.   
  
"Thanks."   
  
Sarah hindered herself a brief moment and then, avoiding oily rags and empty cans   
of beer, found her own way to the "office." It was nothing more than an aluminum sided   
portable, not much bigger than the fanciest porta-potty, and Sarah doubted it'd smell   
much better. But, she had to find some place to stay and stop the pointless wandering to   
anywhere but home.   
  
She pushed open the door, and it creaked and squealed along its hinges. And, just   
as she walked inside, the phone rang. Sarah paused, holding the door open still... just   
enough to let a fat horsefly lazily navigate its way inside. "Phone!" she called, and waited   
again, as it continued to ring.   
  
"Fine, fine!" she muttered and let the screen door slam shut. Sarah paused a   
moment, stuck with a questionable decision and weighed her options. On, perhaps, the   
tenth ring, deciding that the other party was not about to give up, she lifted the receiver   
and with a quirked smile tried her hardest not to let her voice waver in saying: "Hello?"   
  
Silence. They didn't recognize her. This was the "good old boys" club (like   
where her husband had always gone) and she was a women on their turf. But then, there   
was something, some little voice. "H-Hello? I'm sorry, I think we have a bad   
connection." Sarah plugged her other ear and walked around the desk upon which the   
phone had previously sat. The cord winded around her midsection.   
  
Then she heard laughter. And it was so familiar that gooseflesh worked its   
crooked path all across her skin. Sarah slammed the phone back down and stepped back,   
biting her thumb nail as she stared at the phone, daring it to ring again. It was silent,   
slayed, a mechanic beast only as good as the act of communication.   
  
"Don't be a baby," she scolded herself and then picked up the receiver. The dial   
tone met her, and soothed her nerves. She had overreacted... nothing more.   
  
Then she paused again, questioning her original intent. Had it really come down to   
her last option? Sarah shook her head, swallowed her pride, and then quickly dialed the   
number she had tried so hard to forget. The phone only rang once before it was picked up   
and she was met with a hasty, but effected greeting.   
  
"Hi Mom."   
  
A pause. A long pause that would be anything but dramatic if it had been on   
stage. Her mother was an actress both on and off, despite her age defying her and   
diminishing her roles. With each wrinkle she acquired the opportunities decreased. Then   
Linda Williams cleared her throat and continued to speak, her audience held in stunned   
stupor.   
  
"Sarah... I'd though you be in class, darling."   
  
"I left him. I left him and my work and my home and now... Mom I don't have   
anywhere to go." It really, really hurt to admit her weakness, to ask for the help of a   
women who she hadn't really known since she'd been eleven... fifteen years ago. She got   
letters and pictures and short weekend visits, while Linda was in a touring group. Not   
many of her plays came to the Sacramento suburbs.   
  
"Sarah of course you can stay with me...," Linda trailed off and Sarah waited for   
the inevitable "but" of the conversation.   
  
"I know its short notice, but I have enough money for air fare to New York and..."   
Sarah waited, setting herself up for more heartbreak as she let her hopes lift. She always   
did that, her mother had a enigmatic personality and sparkling charisma. Even as a child   
when Linda canceled visits with short notice, Sarah would find it bittersweet... at least   
Momma had been happy.   
  
"Listen, sweetheart, its tough right now," Linda began, her voice dipping low,   
unlike much she had done before. Somehow she wasn't the same actress with the same   
bravado she had always displayed.   
  
"Another play?" Sarah questioned.   
  
"...and you can come over here in a few months... two, or... no three!" Linda   
Williams continued on as if she hadn't even heard Sarah speak. Sarah just smiled and   
looked out the single grimy window in the "office" as the man in the overalls pulled up   
with her car.   
  
"Yeah, I understand." But she didn't. She really didn't. Why was it that her   
Mother couldn't have time for her? In the midst of New York, in the richest of   
neighborhoods at a penthouse! and her Mom couldn't clear out her life just enough to fit   
Sarah. She didn't say anything that she felt.   
  
"I know its been hard since your Dad and Karen... well, and now this with Brian.   
But, your Aunt Mimi has a big house with a lot of room, and a lot of space," Linda paused   
and breathed deeply, "She's had Toby over there ever since the accident."   
  
Sarah inhaled sharply. Was it her pride that had conveniently forgotten the   
farmhouse in the middle of Oklahoma... the closest neighbor some four miles down a   
loosely paved road? Or was it the fact that she didn't want to be remembering her   
childhood and the family trips out to the farm before her Mom decided to move on to   
bigger and better things? At that point, however, it was her only option. Maxed-out   
credit cards could only pay for so many plane flights and Holiday Inn one-nighters.   
  
"I'd forgotten."   
  
"You take care of yourself, Sarah."   
  
Sarah watched the man in the overalls moving around her car, and squat down in   
front of the tireless hub. His pants were low... too low, and Sarah got more of a sight   
than she ever needed to see. Somehow the comical Redneck made the situation a bit   
lighter.   
  
"I will... and thanks."   
  
They said their good-byes in short, choppy sentences, and then Sarah let the phone   
slide back into its cradle. Mr. Overalls was cranking her car down, and she was surprised   
to see a brand new tire glistening where there hadn't been one just a few moments earlier.   
She couldn't assume anything bad about their service.   
  
The air was dusty and stale when she left the office, and as the screen door clapped   
back into its aluminum frame she heard the phone ringing again. Sarah was glad that it   
was no longer her choice to make about answering it or not. She merely shaded her eyes   
and opened her purse, indicating to the man that she was ready to go.   
  
"Fill 'er up?" the man asked, taking a red bandanna from his pocket to dab at his   
sweaty forehead, creased with thick lines. He obviously didn't care about the phone   
ringing, and so Sarah tried her best to put it out of her mind.   
  
"Yeah," she decided, letting her purse fall back around her shoulder, "I have a long   
way to go."


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three   
  
Mimi and Toby, she could never forget them and yet she had gracefully danced   
them out of her every day thoughts. They had been at the wedding, but then that had been   
nearly four years ago. Had it really been that long? Sarah pulled her chipped sunglasses   
over her eyes, blinded from the glare of the sun off a lean-to piece of sheet metal. On the   
other side of the road an old rope creaked back and forth, the tire swing a pendulum and   
its shadow trying to keep up.   
  
The Mustang bounced and rattled as it dug deeply into a pot hole. For a moment   
Sarah was sure that the tire would just bounce right back off, like it had done before, but   
then again.... the car leveled and she managed to navigate her way on the unkempt road.   
Why she hadn't splurged on a plane ticket was beyond her, but then some god-awful   
number of miles across three states was always such an enticing option.   
  
The "road" ( if it could be called as much) took an abrupt jog to the left, becoming   
a narrow bridge that was little more than two wide slats of wood mounted together with   
thick bars of metal from underneath. Sarah aimed her tires over the wood and tried not to   
hear the pebbles as they trembled off the bridge and into the irrigation ditch below her.   
She also pretended that the groaning of the worn wood was just in her mind, but then she   
had always had such a vivid imagination.   
  
*Scared, little girl?*   
  
The voice literally purred over her, and she realized that not only had she heard the   
voice but felt it and tasted it like wine in the back of her mouth. And the feeling of warm   
sunkisses in the middle of summer danced over the skin of her left arm. Sarah shivered   
uncontrollably and then shook her head abruptly to regain her "cool."   
  
"No, of course not," Sarah answered the voice as if it had been there. She wasn't   
scared, she couldn't be scared. She breathed a few times, making the golden sensation   
fade with each reassuring mantra through her mind, those that the psychologist had taught   
her, and made her repeat any number of times since her nervous breakdown-her   
delusions-and her acknowledgment of a fantasy-prone personality.   
  
Sarah lifted her glasses back up, to serve as a make-shift headband for the few   
stray pieces of brunette hair. Then, out of instinct, she looked in the rearview mirror, and   
saw His eyes staring back through hers. She stared a moment too long, unblinking, at the   
wide cornflower blue color of her irises. And she heard His laughter, as she had heard   
Him speak a moment earlier.   
  
Sarah glanced back ahead of her and only just barely caught site of the little   
blonde-haired boy standing in the very middle of the road. "Shit!" She brought her foot   
down hard on the brakes, and listened to the brake pads grinding against each other...   
another thing Brian had "meant to" fix.   
  
A spinning sensation, and she heard her horn blaring into the calm surrounding   
farmlands. Sarah lifted herself up, and immediately the horn stopped. It only took a   
moment to understand that she had hit her head and slumped against the wheel. Sarah   
righted herself, cringed at the feeling of raw flesh being rubbed from the constriction of the   
seat belt, and then remembered the boy.   
  
"Sarah!"   
  
That was him... the boy, and he was fine... and he.. he sounded like Toby. Sarah   
threw open the door, tried to get out and recognized that the seat belt was still fastened   
tight. She hissed in air, her injured chest screamed red beneath her casual sweatshirt, and   
then flailed with the release for what seemed to be any number of minutes before it   
graciously slid off.   
  
"Toby! Oh God, Toby, are you all right?!" Sarah barked out, rushing from the car   
and very nearly tripping over her brothers feet as she went blindly onwards. Toby backed   
away and then grabbed hold of her arms.   
  
He didn't say anything, but fell into an embrace with her, that rocked her   
backwards. Sarah tried to hold him, but her shock was still preventing her from full and   
complete control over her appendages. But she did lay a hand on his head and touch his   
warm and sunny hair.   
  
Then, realizing what he had just done, Sarah pushed him away from her, holding   
him at arms length. "What were you thinking?" she demanded, but he never stopped   
smiling.   
  
"Told you, she'd be here, Toby," a firm, but nonetheless loving voice arose from   
the side of the street where Sarah had, earlier, seen a tire swing. The swing wasn't there   
as Sarah turned, but her Aunt Mimi was.   
  
The older woman, a good ten years Linda's elder sister, was as warm as Toby's   
mane of golden hair. Sarah ruffled the gold locks again, and shook her head. He was in   
desperate need of a haircut. Mimi wiped her hands on a white apron around her wide   
hips, and then straightened her conventional blue dress. She wasn't one for excess, just the   
necessities... the epitome of life on a farm.   
  
"Mimi, its been such a long time," Sarah said, but found her voice wavering. Mimi   
cocked her head and then nodded in agreement. But she wasn't about to settle for an   
awkward greeting. No, instead she opened her arms and smiled, and her entire face   
radiated an internal light.   
  
"Come here, Sarah baby," Mimi stated calmly.   
  
Sarah couldn't resist the urge for a real hug. She hadn't been given unconditional   
love since her poor Merlin had died when she was only twenty. Six years ago, and it still   
felt like last night that her parents took him to the emergency vet, and returned with only   
sympathetic looks.   
  
With a moaning sob Sarah ran across the dusty street and straight into Mimi's   
arms. She held her strongly, making sure the moment counted. One had to live like one   
meant it, not half-assed (As Sarah's grandma had once said). She sunk into the embrace,   
and laid her head on Mimi's shoulder and let her tears pour out for all the years she hadn't   
been held, all the years she had made love in fear, and all the years her sense of self had   
been repressed.   
  
And Mimi, wonderfully comfortable Aunt Mimi, just held her and made up for the   
love in her embrace.   
  
~*~   
  
"You know, Sarah, you can go into town for me tomorrow and pick some things   
up at the market."   
  
Sarah lifted her head and smiled at Mimi. "Sure." Outside the sun had already set,   
and a achingly bitter coldness had set into the night. Toby had brought in some of the   
firewood from the conjoining wood shed, just a few feet from the big barn itself. It was   
heating the living room well, but as far as the upstairs went... Sarah shivered thinking   
about it.   
  
"Are you cold?" Mimi inquired, watching Sarah trembling slightly.   
  
"No, no I'm fine. Just, think I'll make myself some tea."   
  
Sarah rose from the burgundy sofa, patted Toby's shoulder as she walked past him   
struggling over an airplane model and some permanent glue that had already bonded the   
wing to the front half of the plane at a crooked angle. Mimi brushed past Sarah, and knelt   
down by the pre-teen as sprightly as any youthful woman, which she certainly wasn't in   
external appearance.   
  
It felt good to be in such a house full of memories and gingerbread cookies, and   
white Christmases. Sarah remembered Uncle Timothy, who'd died twenty years prior   
from cancer. Mimi had coped with the loss, had raised her son by herself, and now had   
two healthy grandchildren to boast for her strength. And she had Toby now, he was   
growing up so well.   
  
Sarah reached up to the cupboard above the stove and wrestled out a little tin box   
of chamomile tea. It would warm and soothe at the same time. The tea kettle was already   
on the gas stove, and Sarah merely clicked on the gas, and then struck a match under the   
grate. A stream of blue fire licked up and trickled across the bottom of the kettle... black.   
  
This is what I wanted. what I should have always had.   
  
Without thinking she filled the kettle back up, replaced it and then went to sit on   
one of the natural finished chairs around the rectangular table, made to fit twenty, and only   
two had ever eaten at it before. Now there were three... and still the large farmhouse   
seemed full, if not with people then with emotion.   
  
I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me.   
  
Sarah dropped her chin into her hand as she leaned over the smooth surface of the   
table. She looked through the clear glass, framed with gingham drapes, and gazed past   
the night and the dark tree swinging its branches lazily in the wind. She went beyond   
Oklahoma, past everything and everyone she had ever known to Him.   
  
I turned the world upside-down and I have done it all for you.   
  
Resplendent and utterly pale in white feathers, as soft as down... like the owl. He   
had been beautiful and ragged at the same time. And his breath had touched her skin and   
it felt like it had actually touched her soul. She saw his eyes, his eyes as they had been   
eleven years ago, and five hours ago, in the mirror of her car. They hadn't really changed   
that much, but her perspectives had. Point of View determined everything in the world, it   
even mastered change.   
  
Just fear me....   
  
"Fear me...," Sarah muttered softly, her eyes glinting with memories and fresh   
tears and starshine streaming down into the brightly lit kitchen. Lit with lights and lit with   
lively colors.   
  
Love me...   
  
"Love me," Sarah seemed to beg. From the other room her family stirred and she   
briefly drifted back to the present. But not before He finished, Jareth always finished his   
statements in her mind.   
  
Do as I say and I will be your slave.   
  
Sarah narrowed her eyes, her hand sliding across the fresh sweat on her jawline,   
but she never noticed it. "Do as I say and I...." The Kettle erupted into a shrill whistle   
and Sarah jumped up from the chair, sending it clattering over on its side, against the   
flawless linoleum. "Cool it Sarah."   
  
She snapped the gas off, removed the kettle from the heat and quickly took a mug   
from the rack of them on the other side of the kitchen. Mimi was busy trying to instruct   
Toby on the fine art of model construction, perhaps in reference to his mistake made on   
the airplane. She was just glad that their time hadn't been disturbed from the awful   
amount of chaos she had just created.   
  
"The Labyrinth was just a delusion, nothing more. Just keep it together... why is it   
coming back so much now?" she asked herself, as she poured the steaming water into the   
mug and then plunked a tea bag in along with it. Toby was laughing and Mimi began to   
chuckle.   
  
Suddenly the swinging kitchen door was pushed open and Toby paraded in,   
proudly displaying the wing on the plane, completely perfect, as if Mimi had used some   
kind of magic on it. He presented it to Sarah, and then stepped back as she took it into   
hand, turning it around, marveled that the glue hadn't ruined it for good.   
  
"Its impressive Toby, but what happened to the glue?" Sarah asked as she sipped   
her tea and cringed as it burned the top of her lip. She handed the plane back to her   
half-brother and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt.   
  
"Nothing a little magic wouldn't solve, huh Toby?" Mimi asked as she ruffled the   
eleven-year olds hair.   
  
He glanced nervously at Sarah and the shock that had plastered itself across her   
face. She just laughed, taking the comment as a joke, and nothing more. But the laughter   
seemed to have a worse effect on Toby than her shock had. He turned abruptly to face   
Mimi. "She knows the truth too... she told me once, and then she stopped believing," he   
explained vehemently.   
  
Mimi smiled at Toby and then glanced at the clock. It was close to ten, and he had   
school early the next day, if he was going to catch the bus. It only took one look to tell   
Toby of the time and he, glancing dejectedly back at Sarah, slipped out of the kitchen   
without another backward look. The door swung back and forth until it came to a rest,   
and only then did Mimi really look at Sarah.   
  
"He told me about the labyrinth, and the King. A pretty amazing story. I've found   
that its helpful to inspire imagination in young boys... keeps them open to possibilities,"   
Mimi explained and then watched Sarah for a further explanation of the event.   
  
If she expected a great secret all about the magical world that Sarah had   
experienced, and how it had been real all along and everyone would be overwhelmed to   
see it in all its glory, then she was mistaken. Sarah merely smiled, thought back to the   
feelings she had been having more and more often as of lately... the same she had had just   
after the "visit" to the Underground, and then sipped her tea. It had cooled down.   
  
"Well, we don't want him to start believing everything he hears, now do we?"   
Sarah asked coolly, and hated herself immediately to speak to her Aunt like that.   
  
Mimi seemed to understand. She touched Sarah's cheek and then reached over to   
pull the curtains over the window. She merely smiled, didn't say a thing, just smiled.   
Sarah tried to explain, to tell Mimi about what she had been experiencing, but she just   
couldn't.   
  
"Goodnight," she said instead and Mimi returned it with another smile a slight nod   
of her head.   
  
Sarah walked quickly from the kitchen, hearing the same laughter that had haunted   
her through most of the day. She forgot she had her tea when she had gotten up half of   
the flight of stairs and then just decided that it wasn't worth the trip back. Her room was   
the second door on the right, and she went in quickly, set her tea on the nightstand, and   
fell into bed. Suddenly and completely exhausted.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four   
  
There were lines of American flags all along Main Street. Sarah passed under one   
that flapped back and forth in the winter wind. Overhead the clouds were heavy and lazily   
sailing by in the gusty breeze. It made the day into a twilight, where passing cars kept   
their headlights on, and stores already had their fluorescent and neon signs turned on.   
  
Sleigh bells rang when she walked into the Supermarket, the floor made from   
rustic wooden slats that echoed her steps. There was one teenage girl behind the counter,   
filing a nail and chewing gum that she had appropriated from the rack of candies right by   
her. She looked up from her manicure and nodded towards Sarah.   
  
"Can I help you?" she asked, setting the file down on the counter by her hand. Her   
nails were brilliantly red, and almost sharpened to points. Sarah quickly shook her head,   
tightening her parka around her and then grabbed one of the red baskets.   
  
The girl didn't seem barely old enough to drive, and she was busy working. Sarah   
passed a young boy, his face sprayed with inflamed acne, who smiled at her and showed a   
mouthful of awful steel braces. Sarah smiled back, and passed by him, and he merely   
continued to sweep the wooden floor, watching her walk away.   
  
"If I never knew before why I hadn't lived in some small town, I definately have a   
good understanding now," Sarah remarked to herself as she opened one of the large line   
of economy-sized freezers.   
  
Oh, Ice cream!   
  
She grabbed the quart of fudge brownie before she even thought about the   
reprecussions and possible pesky extra pounds the indulgance could stick on to her slender   
frame. But then, who was she trying to impress? Sarah let it drop into the basket she had   
looped over her left arm and then proceded past the remaining goodies and TV dinners to   
the milk. Mimi had been very particular about the few items she needed to get.   
  
Cheese and Cereal, Peanut Butter, Wheat Bread and the latest issue of People.   
  
Sarah went over the list in her head as she picked out the items, mildly oblivious of   
the searching and curious glances people offered the attractive young woman as she   
passed. Then she hit him, swinging the basket into the man's midsection without ever   
realizing that he was standing there in front of her.   
  
Sarah yelped in shock, having been abruptly jarred out of her wandering   
daydreams and completely dropped the basket and all its contents. Only the ice cream   
opened up, and began to ooze on to the wooden floor.   
  
"Clean up on Aisle three!" the loud speaker hissed overhead, and Sarah was   
briefly perplexed why they should know she had spilled even before she had managed to   
mutter an embarassed aplogy.   
  
"You should watch where your going," the voice uttered from above her, as Sarah   
capped the ice cream, looked it over curiously, and then, shrugging, put it back into the   
basket. She was still a strong belieiver of the "five-second rule." And she had been ever   
since college where food was nothing less than sacred.   
  
"I'm sorry, I apologize," Sarah bit out, but his tone had soured her originally   
passive response.   
  
Sarah rose back up, and nearly recoiled backwards. Her heart pounded against her   
ribs, and she felt her lungs contract, forcing the air out of her in one wordless breath. The   
man had looked exactly like Brian, but then.... as she inhaled and tried to keep from   
wavering as the light-headedness passes... he didn't look much like Brian at all.   
  
"Whatever. You look kinda sick," he stated, and then skirted past her, leaving a   
good distance between the two of them.   
  
Sarah looked down at her hands, and watched them shaking. The basket itself   
trembled on her arm. There was a bit of fudgy ice cream on her thumb and, with a lack of   
anything better to do with her nervous hands, she put her thumb in her mouth and licked   
the chocolate off.   
  
The same poc-marked boy came dawdling down the aisle, pushing a yellow mop   
bucket along with the mop itself, that was taller than the boy. Sarah sidestepped the mess,   
started to apologize for any inconvenience and then choose not to. She just wanted to get   
back to the farm and Mimi and wait for Toby with a plate of chocolate cookies and milk.   
It sounded perfect.   
  
She went throught he check-out, using the cash Mimi had given her, cringing when   
she was short five cents and then, raking through the bottom of her tanned leather purse,   
found the blasted nickel. The teen seemed to smile wider as Sarah handed her the change,   
plunked it into the cash register and then snapped out a receipt that she jammed into one   
of the two plastic bags.   
  
"Have a nice day," she muttered, then blew a large pink bubble that popped against   
her nose.   
  
"Thanks," Sarah commented and took the bags, rushing from the market like a   
theif.   
  
Only when she had turned the corner towards where she had parked her car did   
she realize that the heavy clouds had finally opened up. However, where it would have   
been a downfall of rain in California, big snowflakes were skating the wind currents to the   
ground, where they sat and piled into little white mounds.   
  
"Ballerinas," Sarah mused as she leaned back her head, forgetting that she was   
twenty-six and supposedly an adult... a married adult, and stuck her tongue out. One   
delicate flake drifted down, lilted on her nose and then tipped on to her tongue as easily as   
a raindrop would have.   
  
One older woman passed by Sarah and laughed, smiling jovially at Sarah in a way   
only people in such a small town could. Everyone knew everyone, and she was new... and   
she was different. Sarah chuckled, hoisted the bags up higher and then began walking to   
her car with a fresh bounce in her step.   
  
She had just caught site of it, with a powder of fresh white snow over its blue coat,   
and then paused at a store. Its window boasted a huge display of books, books of every   
kind imaginable. Sarah felt like pressing her face against the window, make an imprint like   
she did when she was young and with her Mom to run errands.   
  
But then they had lived in New York, and the windows were unsanitary. Even the   
stores were too dirty to go into. They had lingered on the ritzier stores, Sacs and Macys   
and Bloomingdales... that had been her mother's taste. But these dark trinket stores,   
antiquities dealers, and book stores... they were the spark of imaginations and dreams.   
  
The ice cream was melting. But it was so cold out, Sarah opted to drop the bags   
in her car. And as she had assumed, it was more chilly inside than out. The ice cream   
would last, at least giving her enough time to peak inside the store and examine the books.   
She needed something to read, what with all the extra time on her hands.   
  
At least she had gotten the courage to call the school, let them know she wouldn't   
be back. Given the circumstances, the faculty and administrators had understood. But   
still, the way she had handeled it, Sarah would have had bad feelings given any excuse she   
heard. But, that was a worry for later in life.   
  
She went into the bookstore, at once enjoying the scents of old literature. There   
were three aisles, seperated by long and tall bookshelves, slightly worse for wear. Their   
once dark finish, was chipped, scuffed and stained with thick patches of rain damage.   
Sarah let the door close and peered around, glancing over at the counter, but no one was   
there to greet her.   
  
"Pretty trusting," she commented.   
  
A table at the center of the entire store was covered in a silky red throw, and   
scattered with various leather-bond novels. One of them, a red that almost blended in with   
the color of the cloth, caught Sarah's eye as she strolled past it. She ran one finger over   
the cover, and then paused.   
  
Through dangers untold....   
  
She reached down, took the slender book in hand and flipped the pages with one   
finger. They rustled like autumn leaves, and shone gold along their edges. She looked   
around once more for the shop's owner and then, sighing, began to set the book back on   
the table.   
  
And hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle, beyond the   
Goblin City...   
  
"Hello?" Sarah asked, her hand lingering over the book as if she was frightened to   
break the connection she had made with it. Sarah peered around the store again, not   
hearing or seeing anyone else and then shook her head. Some great place it had turned   
out to be.   
  
...to take back the child you have stolen. For my Will is as strong as yours...   
  
Then she heard something and felt her comfort level return. Sarah smiled to   
herself, shaking her head at such trivial fears. Of course the owner of the store would be   
in the store if it was open. He would be crazy to leave it empty, for any passing person to   
steal these beautiful books.   
  
And my kingdom as great....   
  
Sarah finally took the book up again, held it in the light and turned it over. What   
she saw froze her moreso than the weather and the snow and even the moment she had   
thought she had run into Brian. She immediately dropped the book, backed away from it   
a step, and glared at the cover as if it were sent from the devil himself, directly from the   
fires of hell.   
  
You have no power over....   
  
"Can I help you?" a voice purred from behind her, licking through the empty space   
with an accent so divine that Sarah shivered to feel it around her.   
  
"Oh, Oh, no... I'm sorry, I just... I was a bit surprised," Sarah stammered as she   
reached down to retrieve the book and then turned around to offer it to the man with an   
extended hand.   
  
But she paused once more. Any shock she had yet experienced prior to that   
moment in the unnerving events that she had been forced into recently, was completely   
forgotten. Sarah managed to step back, but then ran against the table and heard a few   
books topple off. The man glanced down at them briefly, but his burning blue eyes   
focused on her, and only her.   
  
"Jareth?" 


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five  
  
The man was tall and sleek, with the same fascinatingly blue eyes that her illusion had sported. But he did not have the spark of menace, nor the air of one who could send stars dancing and turn worlds around. He wore a sweater. HE WORE A SWEATER!!! Sarah couldn't completely remove herself from the sight of the brown sweater.  
  
"You must have me mistaken with someone else you know," he whispered, but his eyes remained locked on hers, and she could almost believe that the Goblin King had done his magical dance right out of her interrupted mind and into the reality of life.  
  
"Yeah, Yes, I agree. I-I'm sorry," she said as she glanced nervously down at the books.  
  
Sarah gestured to the mess she had made and then, cracking a nervous smile back towards the shop's owner bent to gather the old books into her arms. She felt his presence over her, almost as overwhelming as.... Sarah dropped the books again as a tremble caught up her muscles in a firm clench of panic.  
  
"God, Oh... I'm so sorry! Here, let me," Sarah began as she reached out to grab the little red book... the thing that had started her nervousness. She turned it and looked at the title: Labyrinth. Then his hand was on it too, and a concerned smile had covered his thin lips and regal features.  
  
"It's obvious you haven't had the easiest of days," he offered with an empathetic nod of his head. Sarah let the man take her book... THE book, not my book... THE DAMN BOOK! She chuckled nervously and leapt back to her feet. No matter that her adventure through the labyrinth had been an illusion created by her overstressed mind, the similarities were unnerving. But then, even an illusion had to have been modeled after something, or someone.  
  
"Yeah, umm, I uh, have melting ice cream in my car so... I guess I should be going if everything's all right here," Sarah said as she pointedly directed the man's gaze to the overturned books.  
  
It was his turn to chuckle as he collected the last few books and let them fall on the table in no particular order or form. Sarah watched it and shrugged at his technique for "tidying up." He then returned his attention to her, concern written across his well defined features as if he had studied up on perfecting the outward display of such an emotion. "You sure your all right?" he questioned, his luscious accent abating some of Sarah's nerves and dissolving her original unease from his uncanny resemblance.  
  
"Of course!" She slapped her hands together with a laugh, "I'm a trooper."  
  
"Well, Miss, I don't know who this Jareth is, but I'm Gabriel . And its a pleasure to meet you," he whispered with a casual elegance that lent itself to his sophisticated appearance.  
  
Sarah looked him over carefully, just to assure herself that she hadn't completely lost it through the stress she had underwent, and then shook her head helplessly. "I apologize Mr......," Sarah left her sentence open for his answer.  
  
"No Mister, just Gabriel."  
  
"Okay, Gabriel then... This hasn't been the best of weeks. Is there anyway I can make this all up to you?" she inquired, her heart flitting in her chest with something close to what she had experienced when she had first met Brian.  
  
He lowered his head slightly as he walked towards her and, gracing her with a positively feral grin that showed teeth that were oddly pointed, he extended his hand. Sarah let him take hers and shivered as he bent to kiss her flesh so softly that it felt like a butterfly had lighted on the top of her hand. Then he let it go and he backed away.  
  
"I'm sure there will be some way. You mustn't let that ice cream melt," he reminded as he turned his back to walk down one of the long and dusty aisles.  
  
Sarah swallowed, started towards the door and paused as she lingered and peered back, seeing only the lines of his shadow. Biting her lip in question she approached the front desk, noting the little silver bell and pushed it, ringing throughout the store. Sarah backed away, and then tried to find a comfortable place to put her arms.   
  
He reappeared, and she crossed her arms, then laid them at her side and finally stuck her hands into her Jean pockets. "I was thinking," she said, one hand sneaking out from the pocket to gesture with her speech, "maybe I'll stop back by here sometime to talk to you about some of the... uh, literature. I, taught it for while."  
  
"I'd like that."  
  
Sarah nodded and then turned abruptly to leave. She pushed the door, forgetting that it needed to be pulled and almost ran right into the glass. She turned once more, smiling with embarrassment, and then hurried herself out of the store, brimming with something that resembled anticipation, and also fear...  
  
From within the store Gabriel stepped up to the glass, his arms crossed across his sweater. As he watched her leave, he loosed the tie that had bound back his long light blonde hair- almost silvery white, and let it slip over his shoulders. He suddenly looked quite different from the composed book store owner he had been for her.  
  
Within his eyes a thousand and one possibilities played like tiny movies, and with each blink another scene became almost real in full techni-color. It was almost as if his pupil was an obsidian crystal floating in the middle of a vast blue lake. Strange...  
  
"How you turn my world," he sneered slightly and then turned from the snowflakes that were beginning to build on the rim around his display window. She was already in the car, starting it and driving into the icy roads to where she would stay. He glanced momentarily at the clock, thinking that it was interesting that it was just noon... nothing more.  
  
"...you precious thing."  
  
~*~  
  
Sarah pulled into the long gravel driveway that led to her Aunt's home. In the back of her mind Sarah couldn't help but linger on the strange possibilities that just wouldn't let go of her mind. He was just so similar... it was frightening. But then, if she believed him to be similar then that meant she was accepting that the adventure in the Underground had been real. That was one thing she just couldn't do.  
  
Sarah parked the mustang, letting the engine rev down with a purr as sweet as any a cat could utter. She smiled, lingering a moment in the car, and then got out, renewed by the snow and the interest that had been paid to her by a man who was, albeit a bit creepy, very attractive.  
  
"Gabriel, hmm," she mused as she swung the bags out of the car and walked away without even worrying about locking. They were in the middle of nowhere, and it was snowing! Who would want to steal her used car anyway?  
  
Sarah felt like dancing in the snow, joining the ballet of the sugarplum snowflakes. She laughed, plucked a few pieces of the frozen rain from her parka and then continued the rest of the way to the farmhouse, jogging up the steps to the verandah with ease, her breath puffing out in white mist.  
  
"Mimi! Come out here!" Sarah exclaimed with a laugh.  
  
Her ice cream was melted. She realized that as a drip of chocolate slipped from the edge of the bag (obviously it had a hole) and plunked down right in the middle of the wooden deck. Sarah held the bag up, looked longly at the puddle of chocolate, and then ignored it. It wasn't worth her worry.  
  
"Mimi!" Sarah yelled, and set the bags on the little swinging chair right next to the front door.  
  
She had just opened the screen, that was mesh with wire wrought into the shape of two horses galloping through what appeared to be nothing more than air. But, in touching the handle, Mimi's face suddenly appeared, brimming over with laughter. "What are you calling me for, Sarah?!" Mimi demanded as she walked outside, shivering in the frigid conditions. "I should have given him his snow boots."  
  
"Look!"   
  
Mimi looked skywards, at the snow that was falling and thinking about the rest of the snow that was to come. She shook her head and then wiped her wet hands on her apron as she made to go back inside. "Snow, Sarah, I've seen it before, darling."  
  
"You know, I met someone today!" Sarah positively giggled like a teen again as she raced around Mimi and grabbed hold of her doughy hands, cold from the water that had been on her.  
  
"Really?" Mimi quirked her eyebrows in question and smiled all the more for Sarah's overwhelming joy. Sarah merely nodded in response, then spun around with her arms spread wide, as if flying. Then, breathing a long and heavy sigh, fell into the swinging chair beside the bags of groceries. Mimi noticed them and took them into her hands.  
  
"He works at the bookstore.. Gabriel," Sarah paused and got up on her knees to edge in nearer to Mimi. The swing was crooked at an odd angle from the displacement of weight as Sarah bit her lip in anticipation. "Do you know him?!"  
  
Mimi shook her head, but remained smiling. "Must be new too. You should invite him over here, Sarah. I'd love to meet someone who made you smile like this." She then, looking in disgust at the dripping chocolate, started back inside. Sarah leapt from the swing, nearly stumbled over her own feet and then caught the screen door before it snapped back into its frame.  
  
"Isn't the snow beautiful?" Sarah asked as she walked down the stairs again and into the weather that she had taken to be completely romantic. As wistful as a fairytale.  
  
Mimi paused in the doorway, looking at her niece with love. It was fantastic to see such splendid naiveté in one that was in her twenties, who had been stamped into the ground by an abusive relationship, and been through countless sessions of therapy. Still, her spirit was so shiny and bright, as if it had never once been scarred by the harsh facts of reality.  
  
"Sarah, its always beautiful. But you wait when we're all snowblind, then you'll start thinking more about it than just happy little thoughts."  
  
Sarah started at the comment and then she herself began to follow her Aunt into the farmhouse. She paused, as her foot caught on a letter that had been shoved ungratefully into the screen door frame, and had slipped when Mimi had opened the door to come out. Sarah just held it as she walked in though, closing the doors securely behind her to keep the cold out and the warm in.  
  
"Snowblind?" Sarah asked curiously, turning the letter over again and again in her hands, momentarily forgetting what it actually was.  
  
Mimi walked wordlessly into the kitchen and then waited for Sarah to stand beside her before she acknowledged the young woman again. She set the plastic bags on a large center counter in the kitchen and then went to putting the perishables into the fridge... and the remainder of the melted ice cream into the freezer. The carton was, unfortunately, a sticky mess.  
  
"Snowblind, when its the dead of winter and we get one of those storms... and all you see is snow." Mimi closed the fridge door and balled the empty bags in her hands as she pointed out the window, "Your stuck in your home with snow in the windows and curtains of snow whenever you try to go out to thaw out the pipes and pump out some water when the well fails. Thats what Snowblind is, when your completely blinded from anything else by the guise of the snow."  
  
Sarah shivered at the thought. She watched the little fairies of snow falling just out the glass of the window. It was terrifying to think of the snow as something so horrible and dangerous. But, Mimi had lived here forever, and Sarah assumed that she would certainly know what she was talking about.  
  
"Well, I guess I'll see it if I'm still here when it strikes." With that Sarah turned the letter over one more time and looked at what had been written on the front. Immediately she dropped it, covering her gaping mouth with a shaking hand and screamed.  
  
Mimi was at her side, and reaching for the letter. Sarah tried to do something, anything, but she just stood there breathing against the smooth flesh of her palms. Mimi turned the letter over and stared at what had been written in an ink so red that it seemed to be some sort of blood. I know where you are!  
  
Mimi dropped it, let it sit on the ground as she turned to Sarah and took the young woman into her arms. Sarah was trembling uncontrollably and sobbing into her Aunt's shoulder. By the time Toby returned home the letter had been shredded and every lock on the door had been secured. And they tried their best to act normal around him, somehow they failed. 


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six  
  
"No, no... listen, I just need to talk to him," Sarah paused and gripped her tangled  
hair tightly with her hands as she drew the cell phone away from her ear. "Sarah, Sarah  
Willaims! I was a patient of Dr. Kerry's a few years ago."  
  
Sarah paced the room, her door locked, her windows closed and the blinds drew  
down. She paused in front of the glass, wondering briefly if it was still snowing, but too  
terrified to dare to show her face outside. Sarah, completely exhausted from the frenzy of  
feelings, fell on to her bed and looked towards the ceiling.  
  
"Yeah, I'll hold."  
  
It was such a pain in the ass to just get a hold of one man. Sarah reached over and  
grabbed a stuffed animal from atop her pillows and looked it at, turning it around in her  
hands. The cell was still quiet, with just the faintest trace of some piped in Muzak. She  
tossed the little toy across the room, into the corner.  
  
"H-Hello?! Yes... yes? What do you mean I can't speak with him?!" Sarah  
demanded, sitting upright as her face contorted into something that resembled shock, fear  
and anger. The stuffed toy laid meekly on the carpet, staring at her with its beady, black  
button eyes. Sarah turned away from it and then, exasperated, slammed her fist into the  
downy mattress.  
  
"No, you know what, never mind. This wasn't a very good idea to start with!"  
Sarah bit out cruelly and then pressed the button to disconnect the phone call. She felt an  
internal victory having been won, but knew that the reception probably got such  
pig-headedness daily.  
  
She tossed the phone carelessly on the nightstand beside the bed and rolled on to  
her stomach, pulling the hood of her gray sweatshirt up and over her head. There was a  
chill in the home, one that assured Sarah it was, most definitely, still snowing outside. She  
smiled, trying to not let Brian's damn note terrify her as it had, and then thought about  
snow angels and snow-ball fights the next day.  
  
Someone knocked on her door softly and Sarah glanced upwards. "Hold on."   
After having just gotten comfortable it wasn't her first decision to open the door, but she  
greeted company now with open arms. The bolt clicked open and Mimi stood calmly in  
the doorway, smiling with a silver tray that boasted milk and chocolate chip cookies.  
  
"I thought you could use some cheering up," Mimi offered, making her way inside  
before Sarah offered. But it was just as well that way. Mimi set the tray on the ground  
and then hunkered down easily, crossing her legs Indian style on the rough carpet.  
  
"Mimi, you make me feel old," Sarah commented as she got down on the ground  
with not quite as much ease and grace. But she grabbed quickly for the cookies and a full  
glass of creamy milk. The cold liquid made her shiver even more, but it hit the spot... so  
to speak.  
  
"I don't want you to worry about that note. Brian won't hurt you here, I won't let  
him," Mimi explained as she bit into one crisp cookie and then took a long swig of the  
cold milk. Sarah nodded, but somehow didn't quite believe that Mimi (however  
amazingly supernatural she seemed) wouldn't be able to stop Brian from what his  
intentions were.  
  
"I tried to call my therapist."  
  
Mimi lifted one eyebrow in question as she finished off her first cookie and dusted  
crumbs off of her doughy face and her blue sweats. She set the milk down and looked at  
Sarah, waiting for her to continue.  
  
"He wouldn't talk to me," Sarah paused and also set the goodies down for the  
moment, "I went to him a while back... about that time Toby already told you about..."  
  
~*~  
  
The lights were dim in the richly eloquent office. Along one wall were dozens of  
enormous leather-bound books, with gold lettering on them. Behind her was a simple  
shelf with a sparkling purple sash laid over it, and intricate little dolls of the three wise  
men surrounded by farm animals. The nativity scene hadn't been taken out of its box yet.  
  
"What day is it, Sarah?" Dr. Kelly asked as she leaned back in his high-backed  
black leather chair. It bent to his pressure and let out a little puff of air to compensate for  
the movements.  
  
Sarah looked at him curiously. "Tuesday," she whispered.  
  
From the row of windows a few dozen pigeons had decided to roost on the fine  
edge that lined the sixteenth floor office of Dr. James T. Kelly. They lifted their heads in  
unison and then, amidst a flurry of gray and creamy colored feathers, took flight. Sarah  
started in her chair, jerking towards the window as she searched the chaotic jumble of  
birds for the owl, the white owl. But He wasn't there.  
  
"It's almost Christmas, Sarah, don't you want to give your parents a gift for  
Christmas that they'll never forget?" Dr. Kelly questioned. His voice was so smooth and  
tender, and Sarah looked at him, a bit more shaky then before.  
  
She could only nod meekly, darting short glances out into the brilliant blue skies of  
Manhattan. Linda had agreed to let Sarah stay with her, so that she could see Dr. Kelly, a  
specialist in the area of extreme fantasy-prone personality. But, despite his knowledge, he  
hadn't seen a case as severe as Sarah's for some time. She fully believed her experience to  
be real, and had created it in such detail that it was hard to even convince himself that it  
was all a product of her over-stressed mind.  
  
"And do you want to go home for Christmas?" he questioned.   
  
Sarah paused a moment, wondering if it wouldn't be better to stay with her natural  
mother, instead of her father and step-mother. But then, she could be almost certain that  
Linda would be out at Christmas Eve parties to all hours, leaving Sarah alone with a  
synthetic Christmas tree flocked with fake snow. It hadn't even snowed in New York  
since she'd been there.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then you have to talk with me, Sarah," Dr., Kelly leaned forward and opened up  
a folder that he had kept tightly closed since she had first come to see him nearly two  
weeks previously. Daily sessions had done nothing, but make her more nervous than she  
was before.  
  
Everything I've done, I've done for you...  
  
"Okay."  
  
Dr. Kelly smiled, and it was so natural that Sarah couldn't help but smile back.   
She felt good, she felt like she could fly away right then, out with the pigeons. The  
thought brought back a startling memory of Jareth in owl form, and she sunk further into  
her chair to avoid being seen.  
  
"I want you to answer these questions for me, Sarah. When did you last go to the  
Underground?" Dr. Kelly took out a ball-point pen and waited for Sarah to speak.  
  
"A little more than a month ago," she whispered in response.   
  
He wrote something briefly, and Sarah listened to him. Sometimes paying  
attention to what went on around her kept her more in touch with things... and apart from  
friends who, she had decided, were better left behind locked doors. The psychologist  
looked at her again, steepled his fingers under his cleanly shaved chin and then clicked his  
tongue once.  
  
"Have you seen your "friends" since then?" he asked.  
  
Sarah nodded, regretting having to answer truthfully. "Twice," she muttered with  
the nod. Dr. Kelly mimicked her action and then started twirling his pen around in his  
hands as he leaned back again.  
  
"Could you go to them now?"  
  
Sarah didn't say anything. The back of her sweater was damp against the finely  
conditioned leather chair. Another pigeon had lited near the one open window, that let  
some of the icy breeze into the poorly ventilated office. It cooed unnaturally and looked  
at Sarah, with shiny black eyes. Not like those of the Owl.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Dr. Kelly sighed, then reached out to take hold of Sarah's hands. This was  
sometimes the hardest part of the sessions, when he severed the ties. But, in order to do  
so, he had to make her first take up the scissors and perform the act, like an abortion of  
the mind.  
  
"Call them for me."  
  
Sarah's eyes went very wide for a moment, but the firm pressure of his grip on her  
hands convinced her that he would be there with her through it all. And it wasn't like he  
had asked her to call Jareth. She closed her eyes, her teenage face blanched out, so that  
her pink lips looked like a rosebud in the middle of the sea.  
  
Then, her eyes opened, and she wasn't there anymore. Dr. Kelly sucked in a  
breath of the cold air, surprised at the extent of her disorder, and then began to apply firm  
pressure on her hands... then released... firm... release. "Are you with them, Sarah?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
He nodded and then edged a bit nearer to her. Her face had begun to brighten, and  
she was smiling. Inside her mind she was with her friends, those few creatures she had  
met while traveling through a labyrinth of her mind. It was such an intense case... Dr.  
Kelly was certain his report would earn any number of his colleagues' rave reviews.  
  
"Sarah, I want you to imagine for me that your friends are attached to silver  
ribbons, and that all of those ribbons are tied around your wrist. Can you do that for me?"   
he paused as her eyebrows furrowed in question. Surely she felt it to be an odd request.  
  
She nodded, however, all the while her eyes blank and glossy. She blinked one  
time, looking through her doctor as if he wasn't there at all. But her face was full of  
emotion, pleasure with seeing people, or creatures, she loved and worry with where this  
session was leading.  
  
"Sarah, you have scissors with you, in your right hand. You want to go home,  
Sarah! Its late and you need to get home! The ribbons are holding you back, Sarah!   
Sarah, you must cut the ribbons!"  
  
He made his voice sound just frantic enough to make her understand the grave  
importance that she cut these ties. Sarah lifted one hand out of Dr. Kelly's and then  
formed her fingers into a shape like scissors. Her hand shook as she brought it over to her  
left wrist, where the ribbons had been tied.  
  
"Hoggle!" she cried, and a salty tear slipped down her soft cheek.  
  
"They are keeping you there, Sarah. You need to get home without them!"  
  
Should you need us.... Yes, should you need us...  
  
Sarah jerked forward and snapped one invisible chord. And for the first time Dr.  
Kelly could almost feel something slipping away past him. It was very cold and very sick,  
from being separated from the rich weather in Sarah's mind. He shivered, almost calling  
the session off, but knew that it was too late.  
  
"Its late, Sarah!" Dr. Kelly demanded.  
  
Milady... Milady? Milady!  
  
Sarah sobbed out, clipping another ribbon, and her hand shook even more.   
"They're hurt!" she demanded, jerking the "scissors" back. A part of her began to come  
out of the fantasy state, and Dr. Kelly suddenly realized that she couldn't come out  
without finishing.  
  
"No, Sarah. They aren't hurt because they are not really there. Hurry, Sarah, you  
have to get rid of the last silver thread!"   
  
Sarah shuddered. She withdrew her other hand from Dr. Kelly and then, holding  
her wrist up to her sightless eyes, clipped the final thread. From somewhere outside the  
Doctor almost thought he heard a great sound crying out, definitely not anything human.   
And Sarah was doubled over with tears, crying into her hands as she slipped out of her  
fantasy and back into the harsh light of reality.  
  
Sawah... Sawah, friend.  
  
"I-I killed them!" she screamed, beating the sides of her head with her fists as she  
rocked back and forth in the chair.  
  
"Sarah! Sarah!" Dr. Kelly demanded, reaching out to grab her hands and force her  
to look at him. She did as he urged, and he saw her lovely hazel eyes clouded over with  
tears. But she hadn't been completely broken, for he saw the first shred of something  
healing as well. They had made the first break through.  
  
"Sarah, why did you only cut three strings?" he asked.  
  
Sarah sniffed and cleared her throat. For a child of fifteen she was handling the  
stress surprisingly well. Dr. Kelly took her hands into his again, holding them near, and  
waited for her to speak again. At first her voice was thick and waving, but she managed  
to swallow and force her words out.  
  
"There were only three."  
  
"What about the one you called Jareth?" he inquired.  
  
Sarah shivered and looked towards the window once again. She hated to think  
about him. But she hated even more that such games as the "cutting of strings" wouldn't  
get rid of the Goblin King. He was stronger than anyone else she could have ever known.   
Somehow, it would be hard to explain such things to her doctor.  
  
"He isn't in the Underground anymore. I can't find him," Sarah explained. In  
speaking her words, in confronting him, somehow Jareth had disappeared. And while her  
other friends... Sarah trembled at the thought of them, gone forever... could still reach her,  
she hadn't seen Jareth since that time in his castle. That made him more terrifying than  
ever before.  
  
"Then where is he?" Dr. Kelly asked, deciding that the session would end just as  
soon as she finished this series of questions.  
  
Sarah looked out the window, and the doctor almost felt her fear as he had felt the  
cold of a strong imagination and the sound of something dying when pushed out of  
Sarah's mind. But he tried to ignore it, and instead looked at her finely cut profile and the  
soft descent of her chocolate mane of hair.   
  
"I don't know," Sarah looked at Dr. Kelly and then withdrew her hands from his,  
"He could be anywhere now." 


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven  
  
Mimi brought a ceramic bowl of home-made chicken soup out to the kitchen table,  
using two dark green pot holders with little pink pigs on the tops. Sarah and Toby shared  
a short glance, and their stomachs rumbled relentlessly at the scent of the food that drifted  
all around the kitchen.  
  
"Haven't cooked for three in twenty years," Mimi commented as she also took her  
place around the large table, "But I'm sure the food will be more than enough."  
  
Sarah nodded, her eyes wandering over to the window, where the curtains had  
been drawn back. Outside it was gray and the frigid snow had left frost around the edges  
of the glass. Sarah peered through the darkness for snow, but it had stopped.   
  
"It'll be back," Toby explained calmly as he ladeled some of the fresh soup into his  
bowl.  
  
Sarah glanced at her little brother, whos eyes were now firmly on her, and she  
smiled. Mimi watched them closely, and then, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her  
nose, lifted her spoon. "Well, lets not wait until dinner's as cold as it is outside there!"   
Sarah and Toby laughed and then, promptly, began eating.  
  
"How was school?" Sarah inquired.  
  
Toby chewed thoughtfully on a hunk of white meat as he let his spoon slip back  
under the golden broth. He merely shrugged with a brief mutter of "fine" and then began  
eating again. Sarah, perplexed, looked towards Mimi who, with a horribly sarcastic grin  
merely shrugged and dropped Sarah a subtle wink.  
  
"You saw him today, didn't you?" Toby asked, and Sarah started enough to send  
her spoon spinning out of the bowl and across the table. Droplets of the broth spattered  
over her cream sweatshirt, and more upon the smooth surface of the table.  
  
Mimi reached out and took hold of Toby's hand. "Of course not, Toby. Brian's  
still far away from us... just someone playing a joke." Mimi looked at Sarah pointedly,  
willing her from saying anything else. "Just a joke." She spoke again as if she needed to  
convince herself of the same thing and then motioned towards the food. "Eat up."  
  
"Not *him*, HIM! Sarah, you saw the man from the goblin world," Toby said,  
ignoring everything Mimi had said to him.  
  
Sarah reached out to take her spoon back, still shaken from the idea that Brian had  
been to the farmhouse. But, the mention of Jareth, after her run-in with Gabriel... she  
shivered and looked outside again. The gray remained, but small swirling bits of white  
dotted the bleakness outside. Snow.  
  
"Don't be silly, Toby. You know he was just make believe. Honestly, you were  
just little when I made it all up.... I'd have thought you'd forgotten by now," Sarah bit out,  
and then calmly observed her half-brother squirming beneath the iciness of her words.  
  
Toby fixed his jaw, and screwed his face up tightly as he fought against tears that  
welled in his eyes. Then, angered that even his sister, who had told him all about the  
Underground a thousand times before she went to New York, he rose from the table. He  
looked once at Mimi, who reached out to take his arm and try to speak something that  
would calm him, and then rushed out of the kitchen.  
  
"Sarah, how could you? He's only ever talked fondly about your adventures. You  
could have at least..." Mimi stopped as she shook her head and stared longly at the  
half-full soup bowl in front of her.  
  
Sarah looked after the door he had just rushed through, still swinging back and  
forth in its frame. She didn't know what had come over her, but... for some reason had  
needed to tell him what she had been telling herself since the therapy sessions. Maybe  
Toby had been young, but she had told him the stories so many times, somehow he had  
retained them.  
  
"He has to learn, Mimi," Sarah whispered as she swept the spoon through the soup  
some more. But, as she looked longly at the food, she was certain that her appetite was  
completley gone.  
  
"Sometimes, Sarah, fantasies are just the beginning of reality. What do you think  
flying to the moon was for people at the turn of the century?" Mimi paused as Sarah let  
the words sink in. "Just don't stop him from dreaming so soon."  
  
"I'll talk with him.... after school tomorrow. I'll go and pick him up," Sarah said  
softly and then took another spoonful of soup before pushing the bowl aside and leaning  
her chin upon her hand as she watched the snow filter past the window.  
  
Mimi's eyes twinkled briefly from behind the thick glass of the spectacles she  
wore. She let a smile wander over her lips as she took Sarah's and her own bowl in hand  
to clean them in the sink. The china clinked against each other and Sarah turned to watch  
Mimi just as a flash of white dived in front of the window, drifting into the sky.  
  
An owl.  
  
~*~  
  
One week Sarah thought absently as she drove her Mustang back over the  
horrifying bridge. After a week of passing it at least twice daily she still hadn't gotten  
accustomed to aiming the wheels over the slats of wood, nor was she comfortable with the  
dull groaning sound they made with the weight of the car. Mimi's truck would probably  
make them scream.  
  
Town was a good twenty minutes down the bumpy country roads and, finally,  
ending into asphalt only 4 miles outside of the main road. But it was a quiet drive, giving  
Sarah more than enough time to decide if what she was doing really was the best idea.   
But Gabriel was everywhere in her thoughts.... she couldn't just ignore it all the time.  
  
"You're just gonna ask him if he wants to do something. Pretty darn easy."  
  
But your still married  
  
The thought shivered down Sarah's spine of its own free will. Instinctively she  
looked in her back seat and saw no one, nor a sign that anyone had been there. The note  
could have been a prank. A stupid prank that just happened to coincide too well with  
what was currently going on with her life.  
  
Sarah focused back on the road and slammed the brakes on. Piles and clouds and  
showers of dust and rocks sprayed up from behind her tires. This time the car was spared  
anymore abuse, but Sarah just sat. Her hands blanched out in the death grip she had on  
the steering wheel as she watched, in awe, an enormous white owl swoop away, flying low  
over the rolling tawny fields.  
  
*You saw him today...*  
  
Sarah thought back to what Toby had said a few days back. She had already made  
ammends with her brother but that didn't make the haunting clarity of his words go away  
any easier. Why was there an owl out in the middle of the day? And flying around traffic  
so near? And why did it have to be the goddamn white owl that Jareth was always....  
  
"Just go, Sarah," she told herself as she took her foot of the brake and stepped on  
the gas a little too hard.  
  
More dirt cartwheeled out from her rear wheels as they skidded a moment, then  
caught, and she was on her way to town once again. There was no reason to linger on the  
owl. But she did glance briefly over her should, and noticed that the bird was already long  
out of sight.  
  
Sarah shook her head, doubting forcibly that she had ever seen the bird before. In  
her mind she started to repeat her mantras again, but could only get halfway through them  
and suddenly found that she couldn't remember the rest. And by the time she had given  
up completely and turned the radio on she found herself on the paved road.  
  
"We Are the Champions" was being aired over the classic rock station and Sarah  
leaned back more comfortably in the driver's seat and began humming along to the catchy  
tune. Everyone loved the song.   
  
"But it's been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise...." Sarah couldn't help but  
agree as she saw the town creeping in nearer as she came over a sloping hill and nosed the  
car downwards and across the railroad tracks that abused her poor shocks and shook the  
mustang completely.  
  
The one stop light in the town was read, and a literal gaggle of children all talking  
together rushed across the street, holding their backpacks on their backs and swinging  
lunch bags and boxes with Barbie, Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers on them in bright and  
cheery colors.   
  
Sarah watched them walking, oblivious of the real world. One little girl had  
brunette hair, and two long braids on either side of her head that rested along her back. It  
would have been nice to stay forever young, forever untouched by the realities of life. It  
was funny, when she was young she had only wanted to be "grown up." Now, Sarah  
would give anything to be able to enjoy a fantasy or two without reprecussions.  
  
The person behind her was laying on the horn and Sarah started immediately. She  
sped up quickly, almost went right past the store, and then slid her car into a public  
parking lot that was only half full, around the corner. She opened the door, killed the  
engine and waited a moment listening to the *ding, ding* that informed her that the keys  
were still in the ignition.  
  
"Sarah, what are you thinking?" she asked herself, then peered at her reflection in  
the rear-view mirror.   
  
She pulled a stray piece of brunette hair behind her ear and then jerked the keys  
into her hand. She had come this far. Outside the air tasted like cinammon from a bakery,  
and the clouds were little sugar plums above her. They sat fat and heavy in a crystal sky,  
washed clean from the icy snow earlier. Whatever had remained of the snow was abruptly  
gone that morning, melted into puddles and dissolved into mud that she sunk into  
immediately having left her car.  
  
"Great," Sarah muttered, wiping the waffle-sole of her sneakers against a brown  
post that lined the gravel extent of the parking lot. The mud clung, like clay, and she  
ignored it's gritty weight on the bottom of her shoes as she walked down the sidewalk.  
  
The store was still there, instantly assuring her that she hadn't just created the  
whole thing. Lord knew she had done that before. Sarah brushed her hair back again,  
daring the wind to catch it and dance it into an unkempt style as she opened the glass door  
and stepped inside.  
  
Sarah paused as she let the door slip closed behind her. It cast a gust of chilly air  
into the store, disturbing the clunking and churning heater that was somewhere behind the  
towering bookshelves. Another woman was at the counter, leaning over and tugging at  
her scarf as she watched Gabriel turning a book over in his long, delicate hands.  
  
Sarah swallowed, and sidestepped past them, avoiding any direct eye contact as  
she approached the same table in the middle of the store. But the books had changed, and  
The Labyrinth was no nowhere to be found. Perhaps that had just been her mind... Sarah  
took a large volume of Moby Dick up and flipped the pages, smelling a hundred hands and  
a thousand hours of enjoyment on the yellow paper.  
  
"And how much was it again?" the other woman inquired in a chirpy bird-like  
voice.  
  
Sarah set Moby Dick down a bit louder than she had first intended. It slapped  
against a manuscript that was lacking its cover and echoed the sharp noise. Sarah, blushed  
and embarassed, immediately snaked around the corner as both sets of eyes followed her  
progress through the store.  
  
"What was I thinking?" she asked herself again, prying through the hundreds of  
books with only half interest.  
  
But, it was such a waste to do nothing. It was a bookstore, after all, and she had  
always loved reading. And, what with all the extra time on her hands... What a pretty  
book. She reached up and took the lavender book into her hand. It fit easily, small and  
compact.  
  
"Intriguing choice," a voice purred from behind her.  
  
Sarah turned with an gasp as she pressed the book agianst her chest. Gabriel  
smiled and gestured with a short nod of his head towards the novel she now held. "Oh,  
this?" she asked, trying to pretend that it had been her intent all along to get the book.   
She held it out to Gabriel, who took it readily.  
  
"It was written by a woman the whole psychological world today would deem,  
insane," he remarked, turning it so that Sarah could see the intricate cover, emblazoned  
with a whole network of golden leafs and vines and a sparkling cut crystal, the size of a  
quarter in the upper right hand corner. Sarah could only look at it in wonder.   
  
"Really?"  
  
"Quite. She was committed and, presumably died in the institution," Gabriel  
offered Sarah the book, with something that resembled a loud sniff, "She was comatose  
before they even brought her there. But her writing is amazing."  
  
Sarah nodded, and turned the book so she could see the spine, but it was wordless.   
And nothing more than a single dark crease ran down the center of the spine, indicating  
that it had once been read, and perhaps never finished. Sarah opened it, and then ran her  
hand over the wax-paper thin title page.  
  
"Sarah Abagail Donover," Sarah muttered to herself, chilled from finding the  
authoress bearing her own name.  
  
"You were here the other day?" Gabriel inquired as he glanced backwards. His  
eyes sparkled, like a blue sapphire. Sarah shivered again and stepped forward, afraid that  
what she was preparing to say was one of the stupidest mistakes of her life, but more  
afraid of her regrets should she conitnue to live in her shell.  
  
"Yes," she stated calmly, following Gabriel to the front counter. He had a  
porcelain cup of amber liquid, that must have been tea. But it smelled so divinely that  
Sarah nearly asked him about it outright. She watched a tendril of steam lift  
serpantine-like from the surface and then slip into the air.  
  
"Would you care to join me, Sarah? I just started up a fresh pot," he offered,  
noticing her interest in the warm drink.  
  
"Oh, well.... I should probably just get this and start out before it starts snowing  
again. I don't even have the chains if it gets really bad," Sarah explained as she let the  
lavender book down gently on to the counter.  
  
Gabriel's smile broadened, even though his offer had been rejected. Sarah  
instinctively regretted having not agreed instantly to staying here. Hadn't she been the one  
who was going to ask him out in the first place? But, the sight of his smile was rivetting  
and Sarah couldn't help but overcome her disappointment in herself to return the grin  
slowly. "What?" she inquired.  
  
"I think your a bit late to avoid that snow," he remarked and gestured towards the  
large display window, finely polished for optimum viewing.  
  
Sarah stared, wide-eyed, at the amount of snow that was coming down. It was  
astronomical that it had just been partly cloudy when she entered the store. But now...   
She looked back at him curiously, and Gabriely merely held up the cup of tea and then  
shrugged briefly.  
  
"They come around quickly here. Now, Sarah, will you join me or do you still  
want to brave the weather?" he asked.  
  
And for a moment Sarah felt a twinge of fear rake across her body, and embed  
deeply in her gut. There had been something just a little bit sinister in the way Gabriel had  
held the cup to his mouth and sipped, offering her the smallest of grins in the process.   
There was something that wasn't quite right. But then, she wasn't quite right either.   
Ignoring her original gut instinct Sarah nodded.  
  
"It would be my pleasure."  
  
Outside the wind began to send the snow spiraling and send the people quickly to  
their warm homes. 


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight  
  
There was a room in the back that was separated from the main store by an old  
door and a toppling column of books. But beyond the disheveled exterior, the room was  
comfortable and pleasant, with leather chairs and an ornate rug that decorated the floor in  
front of a roaring fire within the brick enclosure.   
  
Gabriel gestured to one chair, as Sarah peered curiously around the quiet solace.   
In the far corner was a large shelf, on which was some mechanical stove that was currently  
sending a tea kettle into outrageous shrilling cries. For some reason Sarah never  
questioned the fact that she hadn't heard the noise from the store, when it hadn't been all  
that far away.  
  
"What if a customer stops by?" Sarah inquired, choosing the chair nearer to the  
door of the two and leaned in closer to the warmth of the fire.  
  
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at her and continued to watch her until she  
turned to acknowledge him. "There won't be anymore today," his calm surety broke into  
a smile that couldn't quite dissipate the underlying threat that Sarah noted in his words.   
She looked away quickly, out the window, watching the winter falling from the sky.  
  
"How do you manage to afford it?" Sarah asked, needing more to converse than to  
avoid any contact... at least to abate her nerves.   
  
Gabriel was suddenly at her side, like the first green shoot of grass from beneath a  
heavy ice crust, when the seasons first began to change. She jerked away, hitting his arm  
and, by grace and quick reflexes, he moved just so as to keep the full tea cups from  
toppling on to her lap.  
  
"I manage," was all he said as he handed her the perfect cup and saucer, not one  
amber drop disturbed.  
  
Sarah nodded in thanks, set it on her lap and then contemplated whether or not she  
was really going to drink this. For a moment her mind wandered back to thoughts of the  
book, wondering if it was still at the counter. A pervasively selfish tinge lit her insides and  
she suddenly wanted the book with her and nowhere else. But to leave then would be  
rude, and besides... No one would be in anymore.  
  
"Tell me, Sarah," he paused and sipped the tea. The way he said her name was  
like honey, and Sarah wondered briefly if Gabriel had known that she enjoyed some of the  
sweet nectar in her teas. "Why did you come here?"  
  
He looked at her intensely, not letting her dare to look away. Out of sheer instinct  
Sarah grasped the cup and took a large sip that danced in her mouth like sparklers. It lit  
her tastebuds and she was certain that a sense of honey lingered on the back of her tongue.   
It was more intoxicating than any liqueur, and twice as addictive. She smiled all the more.  
  
"Family problems," Sarah managed to relent, as she continued to drink the tea and  
watch Gabriel watching her.  
  
"Is that so?" he further pressed, setting his own, mostly full, cup aside on a short  
table that Sarah couldn't remember being there earlier. She dismissed her worries as easily  
as she ignored the way the firelight played on the fine bone structure of Gabriel's face.   
Looking at him in the light he seemed feral... something so far from domesticated that it  
was a farce just to see him in the cultured room.  
  
"My Aunt," Sarah began, biting back the information that wanted to spill out, "I  
came to see her here."  
  
Gabriel nodded. Do you see what I'm offering you....?  
  
Sarah jerked upright, completely disoriented. She had seen a crystal dancing and,  
it playing in the firelight like a little fairie. She looked at Gabriel, as if their conversation  
had never ended. And he was still the same, and his tea was still spilling steam into the  
chilled air. Sarah felt only vague cramps, that told her things were not as they seemed.  
  
"What... did I fall asleep?" Sarah inquired, rubbing her hands roughly across her  
face. Her eyes still felt heavy.  
  
Gabriel tilted his head just enough. Such a pity.  
  
Sarah shook her head, hearing the voice surround them like a warm blanket. It  
was Jareth, and there was no doubt in her mind as far as that. Only his voice was so  
intoxicating and yet so completely demeaning at the same time. It was the voice of a king,  
a king who was completely imperfect. The way a real King always was.  
  
"What did you say!?" Sarah demanded, standing upright and feeling only the  
slightest bit dizzy on her legs.  
  
"Say?" Gabriel questioned.   
  
The fire in the fireplace roared upwards, and the orange and red flames licked  
across a the wooden mantel above. Yet nothing burned, and the smoke was strangely  
missing from the scene. Sarah wavered, holding the back of the chair tightly as she tried  
to make the room speed up, it was in a motion behind her own thought processes.  
  
"What did you give me?" Sarah demanded, backing away, until she slammed  
against the far wall and heard the books on the opposite side tumble over. Briefly she  
wondered if the door was blocked, but instead forced herself away from the wall.  
  
"Sarah, what's wrong with you!?" Gabriel yelled, his hands flexing around her  
upper arms and squeezing so that she felt a single lick of pain over her skin. Brilliant red  
dots screamed over her pale flesh and she found the room slipping back into focus around  
Gabriel's worried face.  
  
Had she confused the Base with the Ground again.  
  
"Ground yourself, Sarah. You need to see the Base, not the extraneous sounds  
around it. Your mind can only take such busy things for a matter of hours, before it slips  
into the fantasy again... and you don't want that, do you?"  
  
"I-I think I should go."  
  
Gabriel backed away, his eyes so intensely worried that she wasn't sure why she  
had decided to leave in the first place, other than the voice in her mind was that of her  
therapist from eleven years earlier, and she only remembered him when something was  
very wrong. Her lucid fantasies were clamoring in the small dark space of her psyche that  
she wished to, above all else, hide.  
  
"Perhaps its the herb," Gabriel offered, glancing nervously towards the tea.  
  
She nodded, but couldn't help remembering the sinister expressions that had been  
on the man's face earlier. Why was he so different suddenly? And why did he look so  
damn much like Jareth. She looked around herself, wondering if she had left anything, not  
caring enough to stay around to find out, and then almost collapsed out of the room.  
  
She felt more oriented in the bookstore as she walked briskly along the dingy aisles  
and up to the counter where she knew Gabriel had set the little lavender book. She  
paused, feeling for her keys in her pocket, and then waited as Gabriel walked carefully,  
regally, around the front desk.  
  
"I'm sorry if I upset you, Sarah," he said gently, pulling out a little paper bag that  
he dropped the book into.  
  
Sarah watched him work, and wondered briefly how old he was. If she had been  
forced to guess she would have assumed early thirties, but then that didn't really matter.   
He handed her the bag tirelessly, waiting for a response, but she hadn't even barely heard  
what he had just said.  
  
"It stopped snowing," he mentioned casually.  
  
Sarah glanced briefly out the large display window and then back towards Gabriel.   
His blue eyes burned as strong as the frost on the glass. She trembled beneath his gaze,  
but not as she would had he been a predator. Instead, something inside shook with  
anticipation and a silent, deadly longing.  
  
"How much do I owe you?" she asked, her voice fluctuating slightly.  
  
She gripped the bag tightly in her hands, crinkling the paper bag between her  
fingers. Gabriel just smiled and leaned a bit nearer to her as he watched her eyes. Sarah,  
instinctively, looked away, feeling a red blush rise up on her cheeks. And then the sense  
to leave returned and she took a single step backwards.  
  
"Its a gift *I've brought you a gift*," he whispered, two voices merging into one  
as Sarah listened.  
  
And for the briefest moment, as she took the book closer to her body, wondering if  
it was safe to accept a gift from this man, Sarah saw two distinct images overlaying each  
other in her vision. Like a twice-exposed photograph Gabriel's calm, but attractive  
features were highlighted with something just slightly ajar. Menace, cold steel, and a  
regality that only a Goblin King could possess.  
  
She forcibly blinked, and when she looked again only Gabriel stood there, smiling,  
but somehow knowledgeable as well. In that moment she was sure that all the things she  
had been told in therapy had not been completely true. The realization made her quiver all  
the more, and she bustled away without another word.  
  
Gabriel, in his lovely sweatshirt, just watched her walk away, out the door, down  
the snowy white sidewalk. Others had begun to mill through the road, as if the ending of  
the snow had been some magical event. The cold breeze still zipped through the streets,  
and he noticed a bit of Sarah's hair caught in the wind as she glanced sideways into his  
store one last time.  
  
An eon of changes of becoming the chameleon to wait, to harbor his  
metamorphosis as science betrayed the sanctuary of a kingdom and a dream. A bit of a  
dream, like stardust, lit upon a mind one day and in the moment, flourishing like a seed in  
the most perfect of conditions, it became something so much more than could have ever  
been anticipated.  
  
Born from a dream, born to the world, freed through reality, all that was opposed.   
It was an ironic world when that which was supposed to help, only strengthened the one  
thing Sarah ever really feared and loved. It was the ultimate paradox....  
  
Gabriel stood a moment longer, his mind making no sense as he watched the last  
bit of her clothing slip out of sight. She wouldn't be back, he realized, but it didn't matter  
much. The winter was there, and the snow was due to be strong that season. Snowblind  
weather.  
  
From behind his counter Gabriel pulled a little black purse, setting it briefly on the  
table top. She had run so quickly that she had forgotten it, and would certainly be missing  
it. Mimi would be in town shortly, she did her shopping every Monday, two days from  
then. Two days wasn't a long time to wait, not when one had waited eons to simply be  
born again.  
  
I can't live within you  
  
And he couldn't. So he hadn't. Perhaps she had cut her ties to the others,  
severing little silver threads like umbilical cords... they were the children of her brain. But  
he was not connected by a damn string, something breakable, separate from her. He was  
more than connected to her. Gabriel smiled and stowed the purse beneath the desk once  
more.  
  
"You and I, Sarah," he paused and licked his lips, watching two college-age  
women pause at his door, laughing among themselves, "We are one."  
  
* * * * *  
  
An excerpt from James T. Kelly's synthesis on fantasy-prone personality in the  
adolescent female:  
  
"...In testing, SW displayed all eleven of the testable traits for Fantasy-Prone  
Personality. She has a long history of intense imaginative involvement in reading and in  
play. She claims that she experiences physical reactions such as nausea and anxiety to  
violence on television and in movies, that she enjoys spending as much as half her free  
time engaged in fantasy. Further, fantasy has lapsed into time set aside for school and  
work, where it is critical for SW to participate in the 'real world.'  
SW is highly hypnotically suggestive. She responds to most any hypnotic  
suggestion even those that involve profound alterations in subjective experience. With the  
affliction of intense fantasy-prone disorder, SW has found her life compromised.   
Separating her from the typical fantasizer is the fact that she is unable to determine and  
recognize the difference between her fantasy and reality. SW can immediately return to  
her fantasized "Underground" without any trouble, and has such strong belief that she is  
capable of drawing others into her delusions.  
One of the primary goals of my research was to trace the development of fantasy  
proneness of this extent in SW. And what I found supports the commonly held belief that  
highly imaginative children are lonely and cultivate a rich fantasy life to compensate for a  
lack of stimulation. In other words, some children escape into a fantasy life as a way of  
coping with a less than perfect world. SW reported feeling lonely, especially following the  
divorce of her parents and subsequent marriage of her father. The birth of her  
step-brother triggered the intense fantasizer in her, showing a new finding of fantasy-prone  
disorder... the adolescent identify v. role confusion (Erickson's stages of development)  
when not encouraged by the parents leads to them forming an identity in the realm of their  
fantasy.   
While fantasizers do not as readily engage in addictive and harmful activity, their  
drug of choice is just as damaging. SW suffers daily in the belief that one particular  
figment of her imagination has left the confines of her mind, born out like a dream, and is  
now "tracking" her. Despite convictions from myself, SW is unable to perceive the fact  
that such a possibility is completely impossible...." 


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine  
  
The bathroom was warm with steam from the hot shower Sarah had taken. She  
had completely lost track of time, and stared briefly at the mirror that was completely  
obliterated by condensation. She let the door slide slightly ajar, to let some of the heat  
dissipate.  
  
With a purple towel she dried her long brunette hair, ringing the thick mass out  
and on to the bath mat upon which she stood. Outside she could hear that the snow had  
turned into an ice rain, so cold that it hit you into your bones. She shivered thinking about  
it and instinctively closed the door.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked, peering into the opaque film over the mirror. A  
distorted blur of a person looked back at her, one without features, but a face, a body but  
no definition. Perhaps what she had become. Normal...  
  
From a circle in the middle of the glass the steam began to fade, and something  
colorful and beautiful, in the middle of the cream and grey bathroom, began to form. And  
for the first time since she had left therapy eleven years ago, Sarah indulged her fantasy  
and let it come, her body still dripping sullen beads of water, and her hair laid slick along  
her naked back.  
  
It grew so that it took over the mirror and Sarah peered into a vast open expanse  
of land, with brown shrubbery that had once been cut into intricate and mysterious  
passageways. Little sprays of glitter and dust danced in the light of a fading, orange sun,  
that rested low on the empty horizon. The weed-choked stone ground was uneven,  
dissheveled, and Sarah, overwhelmed at the sight of such disuse, delved inside by simply  
blinking her eyes.  
  
And then she was there.  
  
She felt the stones beneath her feet, the vague memory of warmth that had once  
been cast down by a young, but alien sun and the scent of something tricky. She was  
there finally, and yet her years of absence did not help the land that had been horrifying  
and magical, and somehow slightly ajar (like herself) at the same time.  
  
"Jareth?" she called his name, and it tasted so sweet that she immediately fell a step  
back and clapped her hands firmly over her mouth.  
  
Overhead the skies were a sickly orange, but empty. The owl was gone, the castle  
was decimated. But then, she had known that for some time. Hadn't she confronted the  
Goblin King in a midst of floating masonry that had, at one time, been a strong and  
seemingly impenatrable fortress. No longer.... now it was a pile of rubble that boasted  
moss and decay. Or so she assumed.  
  
A gust of wind blew through the Underground and Sarah watched as stray pieces  
of dried plants danced around the air. They spiraled and swirled and then fell back down,  
defeated by nature. "What happened here?!"  
  
Her voice's echo was the only answer, and Sarah, balling her hands into fists,  
began to sink downwards. "You know what happened here."  
  
The voice was a taped copy of her own. Sarah jumped upwards and turned, and  
saw herself. Or rather, what would have been herself eleven years ago. Her hair was still  
long and sleek, but her face more rounded, less defined. And a few extra lines had found  
their way to her smooth skin now, through the years of marriage and adulthood and life.  
  
"No," Sarah paused, feeling her nudity but ignoring it completely. This was, after  
all herself. Her virgin self, her innocence, "Why should I know?"  
  
"You left it, Sarah," her younger version explained, drawing nearer. In the eerie,  
firey twilight in which they stood, the girl seemed to glow with a pale yellow light.   
Almost as sickly as the Underground itself.  
  
The young Sarah stopped at chasm in the ground, some fifteen or twenty feet  
deep. She leaned over and reached into it, pausing as her amber eyes found their way  
towards Sarah's. There was a single salty tear on her full cheek as she pulled a white  
bundle upwards and cradled it against her chest.  
  
Then, crying out in despair, the girl jerked the object out so that Sarah could see it  
for what it was. An owl, no... The Owl. Sarah clapped her hand over her mouth again  
and sobbed against it, willing the tears to stay away as she looked at the avian, fallen to  
time. Its feathers, once snowy white, were charred and stained with tarry black sediment.   
Something Sarah had once seen on her cat that had been hit by a car.  
  
The bird's neck lolled backwards, and its brilliant orange eyes observed Sarah,  
sheened over in death. They stared outwards, towards her, through her, into the past.   
And the young girl let the owl drop from her hands, falling, in slow motion, to the uneven  
and broken ground of the magical labyrinth.  
  
"No!" Sarah screamed, lunging forward to catch the bird before it hit the ground.   
Her arms outstretched, her fingers splayed, she grasped it, caught a single wing and  
cringed at the sound of breaking bones inside. So fragile, splintering like toothpicks  
beneath her callous hands.  
  
One single feather snapped off, and Sarah looked at it dully, holding it as tightly as  
she had tried to hold the Owl. And the Owl itself slipped back into the chasm, so deep  
that even her younger self could, no longer, reach in to take it back up.  
  
"Sarah!!"   
  
The voice made her look behind herself, and suddenly there was no more  
Underground. The bathroom was blank for the steam, but her Aunt was standing in the  
doorway, pushing Toby back and staring at her niece with wide and frightened eyes.  
  
"I-I must have spaced out," Sarah commented with a brief grin.  
  
But the look of stark terror on her aunt's pale face told Sarah that there was more.   
Hating every moment of her decision, she turned to look into the now cleared mirror.   
And she felt her breath sucked from her lungs. Brilliant ruby blood had sprayed across her  
pale flesh, like paint. But she knew better than to assume that.  
  
And across the mirror was scrawled, in the same blood, what could have only been  
from the owl she tried to hold, had tried to save, but was too late even before her efforts:   
Mirror, Mirror I confess... I can't escape this emptiness.  
  
Sarah backed away, ran into the towl rack sticking obtrusively out from the wall  
behind her, and tried frantically to scrape the blood from her body. She turned to Mimi,  
helpless, holding out her hands, and realized, in a moment of perfect clarity, that the owl  
feather was still clutched firmly in her right hand.  
  
"Mimi!" Sarah exclaimed, shivered as she took a step towards her aunt.  
  
Then, feeling the blood, sensing the words, and overall.... tasting Jareth in the air,  
Sarah began to scream. In the hallway Toby whimpered, and Mimi turned to watch him  
run straighaway to his room. He would be on the phone before she could stop him. But  
perhaps it was best that way. Mimi couldn't deal completely with this alone... the doctors  
could better help her cope.  
  
Grabbing a clean towel from the rack Mimi broke her paralysis and rushed into the  
wet bathroom. She wrapped the towel around Sarah's shivering body and drew the young  
woman down to the slick tile ground. All the whle Sarah reached out for Mimi, clutched  
her tightly, and moaned and screamed and cried, pressing her face against her Aunt's firm  
shoulders.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Sarah sat, her legs drawn up to her chest, in one of the seven red and silver chairs  
in the waiting room of Dr. Miller-Thomason... the only psychiatrist less than five hours  
from Mimi's place. Mimi was running Toby to the Big Five in Caletta, which had the  
super Mall all the "kids" raved about, and was only a smidge over twenty minutes from  
Miller-Thomason's office.  
  
Breathing in the scent of pine from the cleaner that had been used on the carpet  
that morning, Sarah pulled the hood of her gray sweatshirt over her wet hair. It was still  
raining outside, and hadn't stopped for the greater half of the week... since they had  
rushed her to the emergency care some fifty minutes along the country roads. And in  
defiance Sarah refused to carry an umbrella.  
  
Her sweatshirt was dry merely because Mimi had insisted on holding it, under her  
own umbrella, until they got into the building. The timeless pattering of rain was a  
constant against the window, as well as the ticking of the clock on her right.   
  
Half hour. Sarah thought absently as she watched the hand click reluctantly past  
another minute.   
  
"Ms. Williams?" Sarah turned to look at the casually dressed woman standing in  
the, now open, doorway to the back. She was pleasant, slender, young... only slightly  
older than Sarah herself. And she was smiling openly.  
  
"Did you get ahold of Dr. Kelly?" Sarah inquired as she stood up, hugging her  
arms around her midsection as she approached the psychiatrist.  
  
Dr. Miller-Thomason nodded briefly, then, presenting a clipboard from her side,  
urged Sarah to follow her inside. The receptionist took a second longer watching the two  
leave, and then returned to her copy of Good Housekeeping, turning the page to the  
special holiday section, just a few weeks early.  
  
The two walked into a toasty and festively decorated room. Sarah followed the  
doctor's gesture, and sat in one of the three cushioned chairs that faced the larger leather  
one behind the mahogany desk. "Dr. Kelly mentioned that you had been seen previously  
for a case like this. He suggested you catch a flight over to him immediately. How do  
you feel about this, Sarah?"  
  
Sarah once more pulled her legs up to her chest, sitting sideways in the chair. She  
shrugged and then, glancing momentarily downwards, cracked a brief smile. "I don't  
think I need to go," she stated softly, meeting Dr. Miller-Thomason's eyes easily, and with  
conviction that she knew she needed to ensure she had thought this through wisely.  
  
"How do you figure?"  
  
"Listen. Dr. Miller...," Sarah stopped as the young psychiatrist held up a hand,  
letting her smile break through the beginning of the statement.  
  
"Please, call me Kim."  
  
Sarah nodded, letting her legs relax slightly as she continued: "I know what I  
experienced wasn't real. I went to Dr. Kelly before because I didn't understand that. I  
don't quite understand what happened, but I think that going back to New York would  
just... make things worse."  
  
Kim nodded. With a long breath she unfolded a paper and slid it across the desk  
towards Sarah, who leaned over to look at it. It had been printed off from a computer,  
obviously from the internet... some database. "I've read about you. Most researchers of  
Fantasy-Prone Personality have read what James wrote," she paused as she refolded the  
paper and leaned back in the chair, "I wouldn't want something bad happening. Do you  
really think you can do this alone?"  
  
Sarah, still taken off guard by the report on her, stared blankly into Dr.  
Miller-Thomason's eyes, until she realized that she was supposed to answer. "Whatever  
that thing says... its true. And I have been under alot of stress, but...," Sarah tucked her  
legs under her as she considered what would support her case, "I'm not alone, not  
anymore. And they'll help me a lot more than some doctor ever could."  
  
Kim smiled and rose from the chair. It squeeked as she kicked it back, letting it  
roll on the slick plastic mat that sat atop the carpetting. She approached Sarah, slapped  
the chart down on the desk and then swung open the door. Sarah, confused, merely sat,  
and listened to the rain drilling holes into the building.  
  
"Alright, Sarah. I'll expect you to stay in the area then, and to call me immediately  
should you suffer any sort of relapse," the doctor demanded, though did so lightly.  
  
Sarah nodded and also rose, leaving the room quietly. Mimi was silently waiting in  
the reception area, Toby at her side. He boasted new Nike sneakers, and two bags from  
some store in the mall. They both smiled as Sarah approached them.  
  
"Sarah, baby, what happened?" Mimi questioned, looping an arm over Sarah's  
shoulders.  
  
The receptionist was standing at attention, waiting for payment and the inevitable  
insurance card that would be presented. Behind the plexi-glass window that slid open and  
shut was a large sign that read, in bold print: Payment Due at Time of Service! Sarah  
circled around and presented the stern lady with a pleasant smile.  
  
"Nothing," Sarah remarked. She reached down where her purse usually hung from  
her right shoulder. But there was nothing except blank space... For the first timein the last  
few crazy days Sarah realized that she hadn't really seen her purse, and had left without it.   
"Mimi, did you see my purse?"  
  
Mimi merely shrugged, still waiting to hear what all had happened during the  
session. The receptionist was irritated as she crossed her legs and sighed slightly. Sarah  
approached the desk, placing her hands on the smooth counter and then offered the  
woman a hopeful look, which was not returned. "Did you forget your insurance card?"  
  
Sarah nodded and felt Mimi come up behind her. Mimi would pay, but Sarah  
hated herself to be placed in such a position. She could hear her aunt opening her own  
purse and Sarah turned to stop her. "Mimi, no, its okay," Sarah began.  
  
"If we're supposed to help you, Sarah, how can we do anything if you won't let us  
start here?!" Mimi demanded, elbowing her way in past Sarah to the receptionist who  
looked at Mimi's farm "elegance" with something like disdain.  
  
Sarah stood silently, glanced over at Toby who, she noticed, was only a few inches  
shorter than her. He was getting to be so big. He kicked her shoe absently and Sarah  
giggled. Even her uncomfortable situation wasn't quite as bad as she made it out to be.   
Perhaps that was one of her many problems, escalating the situation too much.  
  
"Thank you, miss, and have a nice afternoon," the receptionist stated as she took  
her magazine back in hand and, with only a single wavering smile, went back to the article  
she had just left off.  
  
"Thank you," Sarah began as she fell into step beside Mimi, "I'll pay you back."  
  
Mimi just smiled, but her face told Sarah that there would be no "paying back."   
  
Toby leapt ahead of his aunt and sister, swinging open the door to the icy  
conditions outside. The rain was just barely sprinkling anymore, and it had begun to seem  
that snow would eventually overpower the damn moisture shortly, perhaps that night.   
Mimi popped open the umbrella, looked long and hard at Sarah, and then phsyically forced  
her neice beneath the protection with her.  
  
"How bout icecream?" Sarah questioned, shivering in the cold and the dull ice  
picks that drilled into her wet scalp.  
  
Mimi laughed as she bundled Toby beside her, and the three walked across the  
gravel parking lot to Mimi's old truck. 


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten  
  
"Mimi have you seen my purse around?" Sarah asked.  
  
She wiped a hand over her brow, pushing one strand of brunette hair back under  
the blue bandanna she had tied around her head. Mimi paused at the door, kicking it  
closed with one foot as she shrugged and lugged the half dozen plastic bags into the  
kitchen. Sarah sighed deeply as she leaned against the vacuum cleaner and glanced over  
her shoulder.  
  
"I haven't dear," Mimi called from just beyond the swinging door to the kitchen.  
  
"Figures," Sarah muttered, scratching the back of her neck as she walked the  
length of the cord to the wall and jerked it out of the electric socket. There was enough  
carpeting in the big old farmhouse to occupy five maids over the extent of one Saturday.   
Sarah satisfied herself with the living room, as she rolled the cord back on itself.  
  
"I did meet someone who knew you downtown, though," Mimi mentioned,  
walking into the recently cleaned living room as she wiped her wet hands on a dishtowel.  
  
Sarah lifted her head briefly in acknowledgment and then clipped the black plug  
against the vacuum handle. She lugged the vacuum, by the rubber grip, into the large  
closet under the stairs.  
  
"He said he had something of yours...," Mimi trailed off as she removed her heavy  
snow coat and opened the large wardrobe just inside the front door. Sarah, her attention  
gained, approached Mimi as she wiped her hands across her worn blue jeans.  
  
"He?" Sarah quirked a grin across her face as she leaned nearer to her aunt, "And  
who might this mysterious man be?"   
  
Mimi looked longly at her niece and then ran a hand over the bandanna. "Where's  
Toby?" she inquired, changing the subject with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Sarah  
simply smiled broader and mocked frustration as she followed Mimi like a lost puppy.   
  
"Mimi!" Sarah began and found her aunt gracing her with a look that was nothing  
more then pure innocence. Sarah threw her hands up as she fell on to the aged sofa and  
then leaned back briefly, resting her legs on the footstool. "Went to Billy's."  
  
Mimi nodded. "He'll be home for dinner?" she asked and met Sarah's nod half  
way through. For a moment Sarah laid silently, looking up at the highly arched ceilings.   
Then, glanced longly at her aunt who came over to sit next to her on the sofa. "He was  
quite a handsome man."  
  
Sarah closed her eyes as she laughed, "Oh, well that narrows it down," Sarah  
righted herself and leaned in nearer to Mimi, "Come on, Mimi, who was it? The little boy  
from the market? One of your neighbor's sons?"   
  
The light from the sun between the clouds kissed Sarah's nose and made her tan  
complexion seem almost golden. She had grown so much, and was so beautiful in a  
ripped sweatshirt and faded denims. A smudges of dirt slipped across one cheek bone and  
lifted just below her eye as Sarah let another comfortable smile open across her face,  
showing straight lines of pearly white teeth.  
  
"No," Mimi paused again as she straightened the magazines on the coffeetable,  
"The man from the bookstore."  
  
"Gabriel!" Sarah gasped out.  
  
Mimi nodded, perplexed with Sarah's reaction. Suddenly the young woman's  
golden hue was paled and gray. Sarah wrapped her arms around herself as she leaned  
back in the sofa and looked towards the window. The bit of sunshine that had entered the  
home was hidden behind thick clouds, and flecks of white had begun to varnish the  
outdoors once more.  
  
"He was a perfect gentleman. Don't tell me, Sarah that.... Brian...," Mimi paused  
a moment.  
  
The mention of her husband's name immediately struck a cold steel rod of terror  
into Sarah's chest. She rose and, trembling just enough to understand that she hadn't  
quite gotten control of her life, shook her head vehemently. "No! I never want to see him  
again! But... you don't understand Mimi," Sarah relented.  
  
"Oh, I don't?"   
  
Sarah rolled her head backwards as she walked briskly away from the living room,  
and into the kitchen. It was chilly inside, and Sarah quickly noticed one window standing  
wide open, letting little flakes of snow dance down and into the sink. Sarah remedied the  
situation, and as she turned noticed Mimi standing solemnly in the doorway.  
  
"It's not that he isn't breathtaking, but...," Sarah shrugged once more, standing  
with her hands splayed across the stainless steel of the sink basin. She leaned her weight  
against it, listening to the soft touch of heavy snow on the tree branches just beyond the  
window.  
  
"I asked him over," Mimi explained quickly and then offered Sarah something that  
wasn't quite an apologetic smile but not quite a smirk either. It seemed as if she were  
saying I know what's right for you now, and I wouldn't hurt you, but you have to be  
brave.  
  
"MIMI!" Sarah exclaimed, her voice waving into a whimper. But, if she was so  
upset, Sarah wondered, then why was it that she felt almost giddy and in need of some  
desperate primping.  
  
Her internal conflict was enough to make her sick with anticipation.  
  
"Well if you don't want him over here then I suppose I could go back to town  
tomorrow and call it all off," Mimi offered, opening the refrigerator to take out one full,  
ripe orange and spin it briefly in her hand before she began to work on getting the rind  
completely off.  
  
"No... I mean, if you already invited him we shouldn't seem rude," Sarah paused,  
biting her thumbnail as she moved away from the sink and over to her aunt's side, "Should  
we?"  
  
Mimi reached out with her free hand and snatched the bandanna from Sarah's head  
so that it fell around her neck. Her thick hair poured out, tumbling across her shoulders  
and her back. Sarah smiled again, but couldn't help the apprehension that bubbled inside  
as Mimi began working on the orange again.  
  
"You'll be fine. And Toby and I'll be here, Sarah," Mimi explained with a slight  
twinkle in one eye.  
  
"I suppose I will. Thank you," Sarah commented as she moved in and let Mimi  
hug her tightly, holding the orange out so as not to let the juice slip on to Sarah's  
sweatshirt.  
  
"Anything for you, Sarah," Mimi said gently and then rushed Sarah out of the  
embrace. She set the orange down and then gripped Sarah's hands briefly. "Tomorrow  
night.... I'll make a big dinner and you can get Toby out of school so he can make himself  
presentable. It'll be perfect, baby."  
  
Sarah nodded and then, shivered again. She looked behind herself and cocked her  
head. "I coulda sworn..." she began as she walked away from Mimi and stared longly at  
the open window. Shrugging, Sarah shut it again and then, smiling, rushed out of the  
kitchen.   
  
* * * * *  
  
"He's supposed to be here at eight? He must have gotten behind a slow driver...  
or maybe he just got caught at the store late.... you think?" Sarah asked anxiously as she  
paused in her pacing and peered longly out the window into the darkest night she had yet  
seen. It was a new moon outside, and everything was shrouded in a thick ice fog.  
  
"Sarah, your making the chicken nervous," Mimi commented, gesturing into the  
kitchen where a warm scent of roasted chicken wafted lazily. Sarah smiled nervously,  
then, clutching her hands tightly, walked back to the sofa.  
  
Toby fidgeted in the recliner, as he set the remote control down and looked at his  
sister, then his aunt, and towards the door. "He'll be here," he suggested with a smile, and  
Sarah only briefly acknowledged him.  
  
"I don't think this was a good idea," Sarah relented.  
  
Mimi reached out and stroked Sarah's mane of chestnut hair. It was soft along her  
back, and drifted like a liquid on the pool of her silky wine-colored dress shirt. Her black  
pants were sticking uncomfortably to her skin and Sarah rose back up, averting herself  
from Mimi's calming attempts.  
  
"Sarah...," Mimi began, and then the doorbell rang and everyone inside the  
farmhouse became suddenly silent.  
  
Sarah ran her hands over her pants, smoothing the ironed-in-crease futilely as she  
reached out to touch the doorknob. Beneath her hand the door seemed to thrum, as if a  
great energy had suddenly made the wood electrical. Sarah moved her hand back just  
slightly and then, blowing a piece of hair out from in front of her eyes, jerked the door  
open widely.  
  
"Gabriel, I'm glad you could come," Sarah said, but found her words rushed in one  
breath that was exhaled sharply upon her seeing him. Somehow it was easier to imagine  
him as nothing more than a "guy" when he wasn't standing at the threshold to her aunt's  
farmhouse. There was something about him that just couldn't look normal.  
  
But then, who needed normalcy?  
  
"Sarah," his voice purred as he waited outside, the snow lilting on the black  
umbrella he held in one gloved hand. Black leather gloves that were obviously expensive,  
but made Sarah shake with things she had not wanted to think about.  
  
Mimi rose from the sofa, ready to pull her niece back, to let their guest inside.   
But, realizing that she was blocking him, Sarah moved back, her face flushed. Gabriel's  
smile was touching, as Mimi looked at the handsome young man, but made ice crust  
around Sarah's spine as he passed her by.  
  
"Mimi," Gabriel began as he set his umbrella carefully in the entryway, "Your an  
angel for asking me here. And Sarah," he turned to acknowledge her still standing by the  
half-open door, "you look enchanting."  
  
"Thank you. Here, we have dinner all ready," Sarah stated calmly, as she gestured  
into the kitchen.   
  
Gabriel followed, his eyes watching her figure moving supply beneath the soft  
fabrics she wore. She squared her shoulders, perhaps feeling his eyes, and immediately he  
turned to acknowledge the boy... Toby. Gabriel glanced down at him and the pre-teen,  
stunned in silence, watched the man watching him.  
  
"Your him," Toby whispered, once Mimi and Sarah were safely into the kitchen.   
  
Gabriel looked slowly towards the kitchen and then, his smile simply feral, kneeled  
down next to Toby. He reached out, and snagged the boy's chin in his long, slender  
fingers. The smooth-finished leather caressed Toby's skin, but the pressure bit against his  
chin harshly. He gasped as he tried to move back from Gabriel.  
  
For a moment, as Toby stared in complete shock, Gabriel's eyes flashed and there  
was something so much more than just a casual bookstore owner standing before him that  
he had to swallow his screams. Then, removing his hands as carefully as he had first  
checked for Sarah, Gabriel moved in to whisper into Toby's ears.  
  
"Go to sleep, little boy."  
  
For a moment Toby seemed perplexed, but then he turned and looked longly at the  
pine-finished stairs. His legs moved, but with such effort that he was sure he would fall  
asleep right in the middle of going to his room. Strange, for it being so early in the  
evening. "Perhaps your feeling ill..." Gabriel offered from the living room as he tugged  
absently on one glove.  
  
"Yeah," Toby confirmed.  
  
He did feel ill. His face was glowing with sweat and his body shivered with chills.   
In fact, he didn't feel like he could eat if he had wanted to. Maybe he wouldn't go to  
school tomorrow. Toby didn't look downstairs again, but Gabriel could see his face grow  
paler as the boy made his way to his room. Cut out the extraneous subjects.  
  
"Gabriel?" Sarah appeared in the doorway, her face shining with youthful  
brightness. She placed her hands on her hips as she realized that her little brother was  
missing from the room. "What's taking you so long, do you want the food cold. And  
where'd Toby go? Gonna show you something?"  
  
Gabriel moved towards and around Sarah, all the while letting his eyes rest  
comfortably on her lovely face. She felt awkward, he knew. She was squirming and  
trying her hardest to remain the poised woman she had become. And he saw her strength,  
beneath it all. That which she hadn't realized she had had all along. An inner strength that  
was so much more powerful than anyone else... else she would have fallen into her  
psychosis long ago.   
  
Definitely would have fallen to him those eleven years ago.  
  
"He was sick," Gabriel said shortly as he reached out and ran one finger down the  
side of her face.   
  
Sarah merely laughed and stepped back. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'll let  
Mimi know about Toby," Sarah relented, glancing once towards the stairs. If it hadn't  
been for Gabriel she'd be up there with her brother. God knew how much he'd helped her  
over the past few weeks.   
  
"Perhaps she should check on him, he seemed very ill," Gabriel urged as they  
entered the kitchen.  
  
Mimi lifted her head when they entered, her maternal instincts automatically cueing  
into the mention of "very ill." "Who's sick?" she inquired, lifting her body from the chair  
she had taken earlier and looked at her niece carefully. Sarah felt her unease rumble and  
boil higher at the thought of sending Mimi from the room. But then, Toby didn't lie.   
Besides, Gabriel was harmless.  
  
"Toby. Mimi, could you tell him I'll be up to see him later tonight?" Sarah asked,  
concern overpowering the worry she had with the "date" that had already begun to trickle  
into the realms of disaster. Sarah shrugged it off as she watched Gabriel sit gracefully at  
the large table. The heaps of food were overwhelming.  
  
"Oh dear," Mimi pushed her chair in thoughtfully and then turned to Gabriel, "I'll  
be back to check on you two. Excuse me." She smiled knowingly at Sarah, and Sarah  
could only roll her eyes.  
  
And then she was alone with Gabriel, with only the sound of the clock ticking in  
the far corner of the kitchen, and the constant whir of the motor in the refrigerator. Sarah  
snatched a pot holder in one hand, took the thick glass cover off from the chicken and  
then set it aside.  
  
"Help yourself," Sarah offered, trying to remember her days as hostess when she  
had lived with Brian.  
  
"Oh, I will," Gabriel whispered, as he took the butcher knife into hand and sunk it  
cleanly into the chicken's breast, trailing his eyes on Sarah's a moment too long.   
  
Outside the snow began to fall heavier. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven  
  
"I'm worried about Toby," Sarah began as she took the leftover chicken from the  
table. Gabriel rose easily from the chair, mirroring her movements as he helped clear away  
the food. Sarah turned abruptly and found herself only a breath away from the striking  
man, his chest touching hers. She backed away quickly and set the chicken down on the  
counter. "It's just, Mimi's been up there so long."  
  
"Yes she has," Gabriel agreed.  
  
Sarah looked out the window and was immediately relieved of her nerves. The  
ground was coated in a heavy blanket of fresh snow, radiating cold in great billowing  
clouds of frost. She instantly forgot the chicken and threw open the window to inhale the  
scent of the snow.   
  
"Isn't it beautiful. Fresh...," Sarah trailed off as she pushed aside the curtain and  
let the cold bite her flesh. It was strangely exhilarating as she stood there, breathing hard  
and feeling too much.  
  
Gabriel's hand on her shoulder undid the moment, but elated the emotions that had  
welled inside of her. She edged back, not making him remove his hand, but staring into  
his confusing eyes. How she had ever thought Brian's eyes were like Jareth's was beyond  
her. Gabriel had the eyes of the king... seemingly unchartable and unreachable. As if an  
entire world lived beyond those beautiful and unruly seas.  
  
She swallowed and laughed briefly, gesturing to the snow. "I never really saw it  
like this before," she explained and Gabriel nodded slowly.  
  
"You know I have something of yours," he whispered.  
  
Sarah lifted her eyebrows in question and wasn't surprised when he simply cocked  
his head just enough to rise her curiosity and start out of the room. Sarah bit her lip and,  
wiping her wet hands on the dishtowel, rushed after him, barging through the swinging  
door into the living room. He was already beside the door with her thick winter coat held  
out... waiting.  
  
"We have to go outside?" she inquired carefully as she crossed the livingroom,  
offering the stairs one brief glance. Her thoughts were with Toby, but she forced herself  
away from the worry and towards the handsome man holding her coat.  
  
"I left it in the car." Gabriel's explanation was short, and Sarah hesitated a  
moment before holding out her arms so that he could drape the coat over her. She  
snuggled down into it, wondering why it had seem threatening when Gabriel explained the  
casual reason for going outside, and then followed the lovely English gentleman into the  
outdoors snow.  
  
"Wow," Sarah muttered, the cold instantaneously within the heavy materials and  
fleece underlining. Gabriel was seemingly unaffected, as he traversed the weather with  
nothing more than a leather jacket.   
  
Walking behind him, through the large front yard and over to the gravel drive  
where the cars had been parked, Sarah noticed for the first time just how long Gabriel's  
hair was. It was so pale in the poorly lit night that it seemed to be as silvery as the snow,  
and it loosed as a gust of wind howled past them. Sarah watched it drift over his back,  
loose and free and so achingly familiar to the king's that she had to look away.  
  
"Well, what is it?!" Sarah demanded, crunching through the snow in sneakers, that  
hadn't been the best choice. Her socks were damp and her feet numb inside. She only  
barely felt her big toe, and the rest were completely numb as she hopped over a log and  
landed, ungracefully, on the other side.  
  
Gabriel stopped, just in sight of the drive. But, as Sarah approached laughing  
breathlessly to herself, watching her air drifting around her in great clouds of mist, she  
realized that something was very wrong. Mimi's big old truck was right by the barn, and  
Sarah's Mustang was nearer, where she had parked after picking Toby up... but that was  
it. The old tractor was rusted, and only part of its yellowish body could be seen from  
beyond the barn.  
  
"I-I don't understand," Sarah started, taking a single step backwards.  
  
Gabriel turned to look at her, and his face had changed. His eyes, once uniform  
blue and seemingly friendly, were now so far detached from emotion that they burned with  
ice, like the snow. His hair drifted around his feral features, and his thin lips curved  
upwards as he opened his mouth in a brief laugh. Those pointed teeth glinted, and Sarah  
took another step backwards.  
  
"Sarah, why the worry? What are you afraid of? Do you think I'm going to do  
something to you out here?" he asked, turning to approach her.  
  
"It's just cold. I think we should go back in," Sarah gestured back and then  
rapped her hands on her hips a moment before she turned back around and, shrugging,  
struggled with her words, "But you know, it is getting a little late. M-Maybe you, you  
should just head on home."  
  
Gabriel now looked back, at the two vehicles and then turned to focus on her once  
more. "You'd send me in this? Sarah, my car's been stolen and you'd send me away?!"  
he demanded, and the moment of her fear shattered with the expression of shock on his  
face. Once more a rational explanation prevailed when her own imagination got the better  
of her.  
  
Sarah sighed deeply and, trying to make her feet move in the crusted snow when  
she couldn't even feel them, approached him. Gabriel wiped his hand over his face,  
removing bits of snowdust and then turned to look at the spot where, supposedly, his car  
had just stood. "Gabriel, I'm sorry. I-I just thought....," she stopped as she walked up  
behind him and grasped his arm tightly.  
  
"I had your purse," he said.  
  
Sarah was silent for a long time and then leaned her head against his shoulder. The  
leather of his jacket was supple, not as horrible as those of his gloves. But then, her bias  
effected her perception of those. She shrugged as she stood up and shivered violently in  
the cold night.   
  
"I already thought it was lost. Come on, its getting unbearable out here," Sarah  
whispered, and tugged his elbow just enough to make him follow her back into the  
farmhouse. Gabriel turned to watch her picking her way through the new snow and then  
looked skywards at the unruly bellies of the heavy clouds.  
  
"It looks like its going to get worse," he mentioned.  
  
Sarah paused and looked at the empty sky. The snow had nearly stopped, leaving  
the night white and cold, but nothing near worse. The days of ice rain had been much  
worse than this. Then, standing right there, the clouds opened and the winds began to lick  
their way past the home, sending great billows of snow straight into Sarah's face.  
  
She shrieked as the icicles bit into her flesh, and shielded her face. The snow  
poured down, and Sarah struggled to open her reddened eyes in the blizzard conditions to  
see the home. "Gabriel!" she screamed, but her voice drowned out in the gale.   
  
She could see vague impressions of the farmhouse, and struggled towards it,  
leaning against the force of the storm with all her weight. But her face was coated in  
sleet, and her eyelashes crusted over by snow and ice. And just as she slipped to the  
ground, instantly buried to her waist in snow, she felt his hand on her arm, pulling her out.  
  
Sarah looked upwards and just managed to catch the faintest glimpse of Gabriel  
through the storm. He seemed to be surrounded by an aura of warmth, as he held her  
close and bundled her straight away to the house. The door flew open and the snow piled  
into the entryway even before Gabriel could kick it close with enough force to send  
several pictures clattering down from the walls.  
  
The sound of breaking glass triggered Sarah's memories and she leapt away from  
Gabriel's warmth as she saw the house grow dim and heard Brian's footsteps as he  
approached her.   
  
Where ya gone to, Sarah?! You've been bad... very bad!!!  
  
"Sarah?" Gabriel's voice disturbed her delusion and she turned her wild eyes on  
him. Sarah glanced around, noticed the few pictures that had collapsed to the ground, one  
which splayed out in broken glass and went directly to it. Gabriel stood silently in the  
entryway, wiping sheets of snow from his clothes as he slipped out of the jacket and  
removed his heavy shoes. They were coated in grime and soaked through.  
  
"What happened out there?" Sarah asked as she retrieved the picture from the  
ground. Mimi and her husband were smiling, with their son between them. It was such an  
old picture, but then it was obviously sentimental. Sarah set it delicately on top of the TV  
and then turned to look at Gabriel.  
  
"The storm," he moved to the window and drew the blinds back to let Sarah see  
the snow piling just below the window sill. "We're snowblind."  
  
"That's silly," Sarah remarked as she moved in near him and looked out at the  
endless white mounds, and more coming down. No end in sight. But it seemed crazy that  
it had just been slowing when the attack began. Sarah backed away, rubbing the back of  
her neck with her hand as she fell into the sofa.   
  
"Sarah?" Mimi's voice from upstairs disturbed Sarah's contemplation's.  
  
Her aunt walked partway down the stairs and paused as she noticed Gabriel  
standing solemnly at the window. Sarah herself was worse-for-wear. Her hair was damp  
and plastered against her flushed face. Her jacket was dripping into the sofa and Mimi  
immediately rushed down to get her niece up on her feet.   
  
"What're you doing in that wet thing! Get out of it now!!! You get yourself dried  
up, I won't be having more sickness in my home," Mimi demanded and then turned her  
eyes towards Gabriel. Mimi said nothing to him, but did manage a weak smile.  
  
"Mimi, we're stuck in here. It's what you were saying," Sarah gestured towards  
the window as she slipped her own coat off and draped it over one of the hooks for the  
hats in the entry, over the tile to drip. "Snowblind."  
  
Mimi walked to the window and stood there a long time, just watching the storm  
outside brew and grow in its intensity. She then turned her eyes towards Gabriel again  
and shook her head. "Came early," Mimi began and then turned to look at her messed  
livingroom, "I guess you'll be spending some time with us, Gabriel."  
  
Sarah lurched at the idea, but realized that it was true. He couldn't leave now,  
especially without his car. They stood a moment in uncomfortable silence and then, with a  
sigh, Mimi went to the closet into which Sarah had put the vacuum earlier in the week.   
"Mimi?" Sarah began, feeling Gabriel so near to her that she thought she would melt... not  
that it was warm enough yet.  
  
"Here," Mimi tossed a whole load of towels into Gabriel's awaiting arms. He  
seemed to understand. "As long as your with us, I should put you to work. We'll need  
those pipes wrapped up before the nights through, or we'll be facing more problems after  
the thaw."  
  
Gabriel tucked another load of insulation under his arm and then, casting Sarah a  
momentary and slight grin, that promptly sung with seduction, made his way back to the  
entryway and his damp coat. Outside the wind still beat against the farmhouse frame, as  
unrelenting as any freight train.   
  
"Are you sure?" Sarah asked carefully, watching him slip back into his heavy  
shoes, prepared to brace the weather.  
  
Mimi seemed to shrug as she jerked at the sound of Toby's meek voice from  
upstairs. She looked long at Sarah, then subtly apologized without words to Gabriel for  
sending him into the brunt of the storm. There really was no one else. Then, gathering her  
sweater tighter around herself, she turned to race back up the stairs. "I'm sure Gabriel's  
seen the snow like this before. I'll be upstairs," Mimi called, disappearing behind the wall  
as she spoke.  
  
"This is crazy," Sarah muttered as she stomped forcibly over to the entrance and  
grasped her own soaked coat from the rack. "You aren't going out there alone." She  
slipped into the snow-crusted coat and then shivered, thinking of the conditions outside.  
  
"Sarah," Gabriel looked at her with something close to the same power that he had  
demonstrated in the night before the snow had begun full-out, "I appreciate the concern  
but...," he paused again and reached out to touch her soft face, letting the very tip of his  
thumb rush across her lower lip, "I'll be fine."  
  
He opened the door and the storm caught it. Slamming the heavy wood around as  
if it were nothing but cardboard. Sarah watched, wide-eyed and terrified as he  
disappeared into a cloud of white and forced the door closed, running it across a blanket  
of snow that had spread across the tiled entrance.  
  
"Gabriel?" she asked, knowing that he wouldn't even be able to hear her if she  
were standing right next to him in the middle of the wind and snow. Sarah leaned her wet  
back against the wall and slipped downwards, gripping her legs against her chest as she  
waited, and watched the door handle to see it move.  
  
But it didn't. And the clock ticked onwards past ten minutes and twenty. It  
moved ceaselessly, and for once (even though she wasn't having fun) the time seemed to  
fly and did nothing to abate her worry for Gabriel in the elements. Exposed. Of course, if  
he had been Jareth then.... Sarah shook her head and buried her face into her thick sleeves.  
  
"That's it!" she demanded, rushing to her feet, "That's it, this is nuts!" She  
reached out for the knob, feeling the same dull throb she had felt before, when first  
inviting Gabriel into the house. Somehow it seemed vaguely familiar to an old tale. She  
pushed aside her fears and lurched the door open, side-stepping as it slammed near to her  
face.  
  
It was all frost and snow and wind and gales, and a cold that was so intense she  
felt blued in her face. Sarah pulled the hood over her head, ducking low as she walked on  
to the verandah. The swing was a mound of shapeless snow, and the only indication it had  
ever been there was her memory of it.   
  
"GABRIEL!" Sarah screamed, cupping her numb hands over her blue lips as best  
she could.   
  
She saw the post at the beginning of the stairs that led from the farmhouse and  
reached out with one trembling hand to grab hold. Behind her the door slammed shut, and  
the last triangle of light was cut out immediately. She was left in nothing more but a white  
void, in the middle of the darkest night of the year.   
  
Sarah stepped down, missed the actual step and slipped the rest of the way,  
landing painfully on her knees. She cried out, handfuls of snow gripped so tight that her  
palms cracked and bled. Red handprints stood out like murder mysteries in the middle of  
the ceaseless snow.   
  
"GABRIEL! Where the FUCK are you?!" Sarah screamed, her voice going hoarse  
and cracking as she blindly groped her way upwards.   
  
A strange abstract shadow of a tree was in the distance, and she could scarcely see  
the large hulk of the barn at her right. Everything else was a void, a void that engulfed her  
like a hungry beast. Sarah righted herself, and, trying to walk with pain searing through  
both knees, collapsed again. This time she struck her chin against the tightly compacted  
snow and bit her lip, sending droplets of blood over the snow once more.  
  
This hadn't been her best idea. Sarah worked her head up, to look outwards into  
the night. And in the distance she saw a shape in the sky, too big to be more oncoming  
snow. As it grew nearer she realized that it was a bird, an owl. A huge white owl fighting  
his way through the unruly air currents and the bombarding snow from the furious sky.   
He dove downwards dangerously and then swooped back up.   
  
Sarah blinked, her breath gushing in and out in great exhalations and inhalations.  
And all the while the owl dove in nearer and nearer until she could make out his amber  
eyes searching for her through the storm. Then, as she watched, it landed on the snow,  
spreading its wings a moment to balance in the onslaught of weather. It laid its wings at  
its side, and looked at her for a moment, wondering.  
  
The owl, once more, opened its wings, and from them were born arms that spread  
just as wide as the wings. And it grew, upwards and outwards, going higher up than  
Sarah could crane her head. Until, there were no feathers nor was there a bird. Instead,  
there was a man with drenched pants and a jacket that was slick leather.  
  
He knelt down, in the middle of the snow and sleet, and slipped his arms under her,  
taking her up. Sarah could only let him, wondering what she had imagined this time. But  
inside she knew that there had been no rationale to explain what had happened. No, this  
was something else.   
  
"Gabriel?" Sarah asked, her breath caught away in the wind as he carried her  
carefully back up the stairs, and into the home. There was nearly as much snow in as there  
had been out, and Gabriel let Sarah down slowly as he kicked the snow out of the way in  
order to force the door closed once more.  
  
Inside he turned, his eyes carefully cloaked as well as his other emotions. He let  
the jacket drip from his wet body and then, breathing deep waited for Sarah to continue.   
But she only stood, shivering and incredulous. Her mouth trembled as she forced it into a  
smile that demonstrated both agonizing fear and overwhelming joy.  
  
"Jareth?" 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve  
  
For a moment Sarah felt herself falling back into the role of the strong-willed teen  
she had been. She lifted herself tall, squared her shoulders and tilted her head upright just  
enough so that he could see the defiant set of her jaw. Her lips quivered just a bit as she  
let a steady expression train itself on her face.  
  
"I believe we've been through this already," Gabriel settled as he cupped his hands  
together. His face was very pale as he slipped out of the jacket and set her with his gaze.  
  
"That was before you turned into an owl," Sarah remarked, whole-heartedly  
believing that what she had seen had been the complete truth. Gabriel acknowledged her a  
moment with a crooked grin and then swept past her as secretly as a cat.  
  
"Oh did I?" he inquired, glancing back at her as he approached the fireplace, which  
hadn't blazed that night yet. The woodstove had stoked up enough heat for the living  
room. Gabriel reached down and retrieved one long-stemmed match from a bunch and  
held it carefully in one hand.  
  
Sarah sauntered after him, wondering if he would see her through her bluff. She  
came as close to him as she dared and then, snatching the match from his hands, leaned  
against the brick of the fireplace. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited,  
expecting with her entire being that this man would suddenly break down and confess his  
true identity.  
  
Oh yeah, I think I must have forgotten. You see, I am this King of the Goblins  
and I needed a vacation from all the mess. When you left, Sarah, the place really fell  
apart. I decided, what the Hell, I'll go and stalk you some more and follow you around  
until we wound up like this... and that really the whole story...  
  
"I've heard you had these episodes before, Sarah, but we're too old for  
make-believe now, aren't we?" he asked, the sinister grin on his face telling a completely  
different story than what he had just claimed.  
  
Sarah snapped the match and tossed it into the fireplace, landing atop the kindling  
Mimi had left in there to be ready should the power snap off suddenly in the storm.   
Perhaps she had expected the Snowblind, even though she had seemed surprised to see it  
so soon. But just as it hit the wood a brilliant blazing flame erupted, sending sparks out  
almost to the very spot where Sarah stood. She leapt back, the fire dancing behind her  
dark eyes as she looked incredulously towards Gabriel.  
  
"Odd how things just happen sometimes," he muttered, watching her a beat too  
long and then turned to approach the easy chair.  
  
"Goddamnit Jareth! Are you trying to make me feel crazy? Everyone else thinks  
so... so I guess that it doesn't make much of difference then," Sarah was surprised when  
her voice cracked and she tossed her hands in the air, completely at ends with the  
situation, "You already ruined me once."  
  
Gabriel seemed to lift his head slightly with her statement, and watched her  
walking back towards the fire, her slim figure highlighted with the reds, yellows and  
dancing oranges. They licked her skin like a lover, and touched the tears on her cheeks  
the way he had once envisioned. It had changed since then, though. She had destroyed  
him since then.  
  
"How, Sarah, could I have ruined you?" he asked, not acknowledging the fact that  
he had just admitted to her first accusation. Gabriel merely watched her shuddering near  
the fire, breathing deeply her emotions.  
  
"You ruined my life, you bastard," she bit out and glared at him through the tears,  
"You fucking ruined my LIFE!" she screamed and then, looking upstairs, clapped her  
hand over her trembling lips.   
  
"Did I?" he asked, taking a single slow step towards her, debating his actions with  
each passing moment. He could hear the clock's ticking amplified, sticking out in the  
moment like her heartbeat. He could hear that too.  
  
Sarah grasped the vase from the mantle atop the fireplace and held it, shaking,  
between her hands. Then, looking long and hard at Gabriel, shattered it against the bricks.   
He paused abruptly and she merely tilted her head back in frenzied laughter. Upstairs he  
could hear Mimi stirring and felt out to her.  
  
The boy needs you now, He thought, and Mimi remained away, for the time being.   
Instinct outweighed the power of suggestion any day.   
  
Sarah was looking at one piece of glass that glinted like fire and she reached down  
to take the large piece into her hands. "I thought I loved you when I was younger. But  
you left me! How could you leave me?" Sarah demanded, turning the blade-like weapon  
around in her hands as she finally looked at Gabriel.  
  
Now it was Gabriel's turn to express his anger. The blinds all snapped closed over  
the glass of the windows, and the drapes slid into place. The fire roared higher, the heat  
pressing against Sarah and forcing her to move further away. In the moment he was  
anything but a typical man. For a moment his clothes flashed away and he burned  
brilliantly before her.  
  
"How do you show love, Sarah?" he growled, having regressed from the godlike  
beauty back to something which Sarah could look at without cringing in horror. Gabriel  
wasn't standing in front of her anymore. He needn't affirm her belief in words, his  
appearance did it for her. He had completely undergone transformation into something  
other, into the King... Jareth. "HOW!"   
  
Sarah cringed backwards, moving towards the kitchen carefully as she watched  
Jareth's movements, calculated, like a panther. His sweater was silky black against his  
skin, suddenly, and his jeans melding into riding pants so tight that they seemed painted  
against his supple legs. It was as if he was becoming the panther that Sarah had just  
envisioned. Perhaps that was how it was.  
  
"How dare you ask me!" Sarah retaliated, but still recoiled as he came nearer,  
"You made my life Hell throughout the Labyrinth! I could've lost Toby!"  
  
"You learned nothing!" Jareth hissed as he lunged towards her and drove her  
through the swinging doors which led into the kitchen. Inside the lights were off and he  
followed her struggled breaths through the darkness. "You said you loved me, Sarah.   
Look at what you did to me! Look at my kingdom, my subjects..."  
  
Suddenly a flashlight popped on and Jareth stared into blinding white light, until  
his eyes adjusted. He peered through the beam and saw Sarah's ashy face in the dark, like  
a moon through the night. He looked downwards, his clothing so black and soft, and then  
smirked towards her. "I never meant..."  
  
"Of course not," Jareth relented, and suddenly the king seemed very ragged and  
old as he leaned against the wall furthest from Sarah. "How do you know, Sarah, that I  
never loved you? I was your pawn, and you... you were my Queen. We were one, you  
and I. So much a part of the other that it stung to be away. To put you through Hell put  
me through the same. I suffered the slings of your misfortune, Sarah. Why, after all that,  
would I return to the key of such pain?! Why, other than love?"  
  
"You can't love!" Sarah spat out viciously, completely unmoved from his  
declaration of truth. Jareth breathed deeply as he stood there, looking at her and her light.   
Then, clenching his jaw, he moved towards her with such speed that she had only just  
realized that he had moved when he pinned her violently against another wall.  
  
"Can't I?" he asked, running his fingers against the skin of her face, making bright  
red lines where the pressure dug into her flesh. Sarah moved her face away from him, the  
flashlight jerking out of her hand and rolling across the ground. It finally settled near his  
feet, the light beaming towards the door which they had both used as an entrance moments  
earlier.  
  
He pinned her with his body, breathing harshly through his mouth and then placed  
his slender hands on either side of her beautiful face. Sarah ran her hands along the wall as  
he looked into her eyes, locked. She felt herself falling into captivation as her hands  
continued to search for a way out. For a moment he looked downwards and she felt  
something within him reach out for her.  
  
"You terrified me," she whispered, her voice trembling like her muscles.  
  
A heavy bout of wind bulldozed into the farmhouse and Sarah shrieked as the  
walls shook beneath the torturous weather. Jareth seemed unfazed as he leaned in closer  
and ran his face alongside hers. Stopping so that his mouth rested near her ear and his  
breath tingled the hairs on the nape of her neck. Sarah wanted to pull him closer, but she  
had found Mimi's china and gripped one plate tightly in her hand.  
  
"There is nothing pure in this world, even love. Rage and Sex are one," Jareth  
whispered, and Sarah felt her body's urge to give in.  
  
Sarah turned so that her lips were only a breath from his. She swallowed  
nervously, smelling his sweet scent of divine magic and promises and childhood, and let  
him move closer. For a moment she could feel the touch of his lip against hers, and she  
closed her eyes as she lifted her arm.  
  
He moved his hands up to her face again, touched her lips with his thumb and then  
leant in to press his lips to hers. But it never happened. Sarah brought the plate down in a  
determined arc, and it struck the King's head bluntly, shattering into ceramic pieces all  
over the linoleum. Jareth struggled backwards, toppling the chair and landed sprawled  
against the large table.  
  
"How dare you!" Sarah spat as she cried to herself and sobbed, feeling a horrible  
sense of deja vu for the situation and her anger, and her triumph. But where could she run  
now? There was nowhere else to go.  
  
Pulling back her hair she rushed from the kitchen, trying not to hear Jareth's noises  
as he clamored from the table. And then, just as she gripped the heavy bookcase on the  
other side of the living room, a dull snap covered the farmhouse and the lights vanished.   
It was like a wave of black that overtook the place, as Sarah watched, and she secretly  
wished she had remembered to grab the flashlight.   
  
Panting and moaning to herself she struggled the bookshelf over so that it partly  
blocked the doors. Jareth could still get through, since they swung both ways, but she  
hoped to have hindered him enough so as to find Mimi and Toby and run far away from  
the King who haunted her.   
  
But she couldn't find them, not quite yet. Sarah rolled the TV stand and TV itself  
out in front of the bookshelf and then, panting from the exertion and the heavy dose of  
adrenaline that was pumping through her body, she leaned against the barrier and broke  
down. She buried her face against the smooth wood, beating her fists against them with  
her last remnants of strength as she let the walls break down that guarded her emotions.  
  
"God!" Sarah cried out in horror and fear and everything she had been too worried  
to feel since being to the Labyrinth. A place they had said had been in her mind. A place  
where the King... the imaginary King... had traversed to reach her here, in her aunt's  
home.  
  
Then there were rough arms around her, and a hand across her mouth, gagging her  
attempts to scream. Jareth's face was beside hers and his mouth was curved into a  
seductive, and terrifyingly sinister smile. Strange how things could be so different and  
labeling the same thing. Sarah's eyes rolled to the side to see him, and she kicked out  
violently with her legs.  
  
"Shhh," he calmed and then threw her brutally atop the sofa, which springs dug  
painfully into her back. Sarah cried out, sobbing, but found that she couldn't scream to  
save her life. Instead she stared with wide eyes at the man looming over her, silken black  
and horrible... but intoxicatingly undeniable.  
  
"Mimi'll hear you," Sarah whispered, grasping for anything to stop him.  
  
Jareth merely chuckled to himself. "If I wish her not to hear, do you think she'll  
appear down here of her own free will, Sarah? Do you think I'd allow that sort of petty  
interference?" he asked and then began to diligently circle the sofa, upon which she laid  
frantically watching him move around her, fearful of the inevitable pounce.  
  
"What do you want!?" Sarah demanded, fearing the answer more so than the void  
of question she had since then sustained life within.  
  
Jareth paused and then leaned down close to her so that she could see his two  
strikingly different colored eyes. They sparked with brilliant white flames as he looked at  
her and glanced towards the closed window. "Oh, very little," he assured and once more  
laughed.  
  
"Leave me the FUCK alone!" Sarah begged, getting up on her knees as she  
waited, noting how he paused and looked down at her from the front of the sofa. His shirt  
had drifted open, revealing skin like alabaster, and a slender chest that was molded from  
china. Sarah swallowed deeply and shuddered again despite her internal warmth that had  
been strewn into flames.  
  
"Such vulgar language," he taunted and then moved in with lightening-quick  
reflexes to grip her slender wrists and pin her arms on either side of her writhing body.   
Jareth looked over her form, and how much she had changed. He licked his lips and then  
returned his eyes to her face. "But not for long."  
  
"Just tell me, Sarah. Would you say you love me, that... if you loved me and I you  
I would release you...," Jareth trailed off, watching her eyes as he moved in nearer until  
they were so near that she felt almost crushed beneath a weight that was not atop her. He  
moved so that he straddled her on the couch, still pinning her carefully to prevent another  
attack.  
  
"Fuck you," Sarah sobbed with vehemence.  
  
"That's my girl," Jareth remarked and then, again coming down on her so quickly  
Sarah couldn't react, he kissed her. Her lips were crushed against her teeth... bruised. He  
moved back, looked down at her again and then moved down and bite into her neck.   
Sarah hissed in breath and arched against him, as his tongue ran along her flesh.  
  
Tendrils of hot and cold devoured her skin as he crushed the bones in her wrist and  
she rolled her head back. The pain of his teeth was as erotic as if a vampire had been the  
one lusting after her, drawing life's blood from her neck. She licked her lips, arching  
against him again and then, as he turned his eyes to gaze into hers Sarah moved her head  
upwards...  
  
And seared the moment as she deepened a kiss and probed his mouth with her  
tongue. 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen  
  
Sarah wrenched her arms free from his vice-like grip, clutching her fingertips to his  
beautiful Adonis features. Sallow shadows under her fingertips bent to the pressure she  
forced upon his skin as she urged his head back. One long and curved nail pierced the  
point at the back of his jaw, just below his ear, and a ruby drop of blood poised on her  
ring finger, trickling over the zircon ring she had worn that day.  
  
Jareth hissed in air as he let her run the finger across his lips, tasting the semi-metal  
taste of blood at the very tip of his tongue. Then, with reflexes lightning quick, he jerked  
her arm back, catching her slender wrist again and wrenching it painfully behind her head,  
so that her hand was nestled in her draped hair. He found her other and matched it with  
the first.  
  
"Do as I say and I will be your slave," Jareth whispered as he carressed her neck a  
moment with his aquiline nose.  
  
The darkness that slept in her innermost realms reared its head at Jareth's words.   
Sarah, for a moment, felt herself grow so complete it was painful. She craned her neck  
back, her laughter bubbling in deep-throated chuckles that Jareth listened to with a sadistic  
grin over his thin lips, partially smeared with his own blood still.  
  
"Yes," Sarah bit out, sneering towards the man of her nightmares and of her  
dreams.  
  
Jareth leaned back, loosing his grip on her wrists as he perched just over her pelvis.   
Her breath jerked in and out of her, jostling her body in seduction as he took hold of the  
uppermost button of her dress shirt and pried it open with ease only those with skill could  
demonstrate.   
  
But the single button did nothing but show the arced slope of her collarbones as  
they met in a slight hollow to her neck. With ravenous hands he gripped the silky fabric  
and, deftly with a single smooth movement, tore the shirt apart, leaving it to flutter at her  
side.   
  
In the vague light he saw the upwards curve of her breasts, moving rhythmically up  
and down with each shattered breath she took. Once more he kissed her, crushing her into  
the sofa and then, without so much as a hesitation, she was on the ground and he atop her  
once more, freed of the contraints of the rough and sagging sofa.  
  
He raked his hands across her body, lingering over the barely-there material of  
which her bra had been constructed. Her nipples erect as he circled them once, only the  
damn fabric seperating his flesh from hers. Sarah arched her back again, digging her  
fingers into his back as she took hold of his light shirt and pulled it up and over his bowed  
head.  
  
His skin was alabaster milk in the night, and she let her hands wander over his thin  
chest slightly longer than she would have dared had it been light. She hestitated over his  
abdomen, firm and trembling at the tender slip of her nail across it. She felt him suck in  
and his pelvis move in deeper against her.  
  
"Get rid of them," Sarah whispered, grinding her teeth against desire so powerful it  
galloped her heart.  
  
Jareth understood and, with laying his hand over her chestnut eyes, their clothes  
were gone, and she felt him against her, strong and powerful. Too powerful. Once more  
he gripped her arms, and again he forced her into submission as he mounted atop her and  
gazed at her, fully nude beneath him, of equal nudity.  
  
"As you wish," he purred and kissed her jawline.  
  
His hands loosed from her wrists, but Sarah found her arms firmly in place, held by  
strips of velvet so soft that even her fear of the situation was not strong enough to  
overthrow the lust. The raw sexual drive was fierce and electric in the night as the snow  
cascaded down from the heavens in a single endless curtain.  
  
Running his smooth hands along the curve of her shoulders, down to the incline  
inwards of her ribcage until it sloped against a slender waist and rounded hips, he paused,  
and kissed the space between her breasts, sensing her quiver at his touch. Jareth ran his  
palms back up, lingering across her abdomen as she had done earlier.  
  
And all along Sarah responded to everything he did. She succumbed to his slight  
urge, with a single nudge of his leg, to spread her own wide. And again she found the  
same velvet restriants securing her ankles, leaving her spread on the ground like a bare  
sacrificial lamb. Like the living alter of the satanic mass... a nude woman...  
  
Then he was touching her breasts and the touch was not anything she had ever felt  
before. The years with Brian, the countless dirty episodes awashed in sweat and tangled  
clothes in the back of cars with meaningless men; everything became secondary garbage to  
the touch he made on her skin.   
  
"I control you, Sarah.... Tell me you would do anything!" Jareth whispered  
harshly, his mouth fondling her neck, as he bit again and she bent her head to enclose his.  
  
"Anything," her breathless whispered response hung over them as Jareth moved  
downwards, trailing fire over her breasts and across her abdoment that shivered like  
horse's skin in the summer evenings.  
  
"You are mine," Jareth stated, his distinctly different colored eyes flashing as he  
caught her gaze and held it, intensity a fire that raged between them.  
  
"yes," she was meek this time, but an answer that pleased the king nonetheless.   
And that was what she needed, to please him so that he could continue to do such sweet,  
sweet things again.  
  
He tantalized her inner thigh, kneading into her leg as his own breathing increased.   
The thought of such power, such supreme power over the one who had bested him surged  
into him and he felt himself grow harder at such an image as what her simple answer had  
created. But then, it was a lie that he saw in his perfect imagination. His fingertips went  
to the core of her sexuality, and she jittered as he flicked his finger over it briefly.  
  
"And I.... I am yours."  
  
She didn't respond to what he had said, her body too electrified to grace the brief  
statement with even the short answer she had given the other questions. Sarah merely dug  
her hips down, urging him to come to her... to stop toying.  
  
"yes," he said this time, and then moved his finger inside of her.   
  
Her widened eyes snapped shut and she strained against the binds that held her.   
The pressure against her heightened the response, and Sarah thrashed a moment before  
she realized that there was no way out. And then dawning realization stole into the  
moment, just as he let his hand wander from the treasure trove between her legs... and he  
poised himself over her.  
  
"Jareth...." Sarah began, watching him watch her, and she saw in the moment such  
a sinister glare that the night she had left Brian became something of a fairytale in  
comparison. "Oh God... Fuck...!" Her mouth poured with profanities, begging and  
pleading for more... and less... to stop... continue.... and He lowered himself into her.  
  
Declarations of pleasure, moans. A taste of sweat on lips as Jareth moved in and  
kissed her neck, her lips, her forehead. Sarah would have reached to touch him, but her  
hands were bound. But, strangely, they loosed just a bit as she pulled against them,  
finding she could bring her arms up almost to Jareth as she reached.  
  
"Oh!" Sarah exclaimed, rushing her hips into his. A mounting energy grew as he  
moved against her harder, harder....  
  
She could feel him with her, his manhood like a rock... like the rest of his body.   
Jareth's muscles were so taught they trembled against her, and she moved to touch him  
with her hands and found the binds gone, nothing but ribbons remained around her wrists  
and she moved them to grasp him, urged him downwards, wrap her legs around him.  
  
He wasn't the only one with experience....  
  
"Come on!" Sarah whispered intensely, her hips swaying upwards as the power she  
had felt mounted higher and higher yet. All the other lovers.... all the other nights of sex  
and groping, kissing and touching. She felt dirty, but felt slavation through this vengeful,  
angry, almost forced act of sex. Strange.  
  
And then she came, and Jareth felt her bucking beneath him, grinding up to him,  
tightening against him. He rolled his head back, his mouth formed into a tightened "o" as  
he felt himself reaching the climax. In that moment he came and she slid comfortably into  
the downward spiral of their sex.  
  
I feel him, his.... seed. Sarah thought as he slipped out of her, laying against her,  
two bodies entertwined on the ground of an old farmhouse, in the musky underglowing  
scent of primal love. Fuck you, Brian.... I hope I get pregnant.  
  
In one simulataneous action the lights popped back on, and Sarah felt herself  
dipping back inside herself, evaluating just where she was, and what naked body now laid  
with her own nude self. She shivered, and she looked at the walls of the farmhouse as if  
they were watching her. Silent sentinal to their damned act.   
  
Forbidden. They seemed to whisper. Abomination. The words slipped down on  
her, breaking through her carefully constructed approval of the situations.  
  
But with the lights coming on, another event occured. In the far corner of the  
living room, just where the stairs led up to the bedrooms, a window smashed in, and both  
lovers jerked up to see just what had happened.  
  
"How could you?!" Sarah asked, suddenly and completley out of the moment.  
  
Jareth just acknowledged her as she turned her face to the ground, loathing herself  
more than any other moment she could have found. The touch of the back of his hand on  
her cheek very nearly undid her determination to hate him again. Sarah looked up, and  
saw him fully clothed again, casual attire, not the sleek black panther suit he had strangely  
morphed his clothes into during the chase.  
  
"We are one, Sarah. You are as much a part of me as I you...," he trailed off, his  
head tilting briefly to one side as another pane of glass fell from the frame and struck the  
ground, shattering into a thousand unimportant pieces. Sarah could relate to the glass, as  
she saw it laying helpless on the unforgiving ground.  
  
"Fuck you! Get away from me, and get out of my fucking house!" Sarah  
demanded, pushing him hard as she struggled to her legs between sobs and moans,  
stumbling towards the glass before she even realized that she too was now fully clothed.  
  
Sarah ripped at the shirt, tearing the sleeve in two and ruthlessly casting three  
buttons to the ground. She turned on Jareth, leveled a finger at him as her eyes puffed  
from the hysterical tears that poured free. "I don't need your help! Leave me alone!!"  
Sarah bellowed, doubling over as she wrapped her arms around her midsection and shook  
her head in shock.  
  
"This fickleness will be your undoing," Jareth stated calmly.  
  
But then he didn't look like the king anymore. Suddenly he seemed calm,  
unimposing, like the bookstore owner Sarah had met those several weeks ago. She  
looked at him through teary eyes and gasped, and and then sobbed again as she made her  
way to the broken window.   
  
Sareh very nearly tumbled over the brick that laid amidst the mass of broken  
helpless glass.  
  
"What now?" she demanded, throwing her hands in the air.  
  
She reached to take the brick in hand, and turned it over, at once a sense of utmost  
dread dripped into her, covering the feeling Jareth had previously given her. Jareth,.... or  
Gabriel... Sarah looked at him briefly, wondering if to spite him would be the best decision  
to make, and then she slipped the little piece of attached paper out from the band that tied  
it to the brick, that had broken the window.  
  
Jareth caught her wandering gaze and merely cocked his head and then turned  
away from her. She was not worth his time anymore, not when he had conquered her, had  
sought his revenge and gained it over her. Ravished her completely, a thing she had never  
imagined... except in her darkest of dreams.  
  
Upstairs she heard Mimi... they had finally realized that Sarah was downstairs. Or,  
even moreso, had been loosed from the careful spell that Jareth settled over them. But it  
didn't matter then, not when Sarah read the note and brought one shivering hand to her  
mouth as she cried out and sunk to the ground, hysterical once more.  
  
"Sarah!?" Mimi called from upstairs as he footsteps echoed along the steps  
towards the living room.  
  
Sarah let the note drop from her hand and she rolled to her side as she curled  
herself up. Her hair draped over her ashen face, and she felt Jareth beside her, as Mimi  
approached. His hand was on her, touching her back, and Mimi was at her side forcing  
her face upwards. Toby had the note in his hand, Sarah realized, when she at last looked  
at them again.  
  
"Mimi?" Toby asked, offering her the little scrap of white paper as his hands began  
to shake, very similar to the way Sarah was trembling.  
  
Mimi took it and, holding it out so that she could read it with her fading eyesight.   
Again the note fluttered to the ground as her hand grew weak and she turned to look out  
the broke window, and its jagged edges. The snow continued to barrell downwards,  
without an end in sight. But that was how it always was during a Snowblind, no end ever  
in sight.  
  
"Lock all the doors, close up the windows, and draw the blinds. We'll all get  
comfortable down here tonight," Mimi ordered as she looked at Toby and... the man she  
still beleived to be Gabriel. "I'm going to get my gun."  
  
Sarah moaned at the thought and, reaching out blindly, collapsed herself into  
Jareth's arms. She sobbed against his shoulder, clutching at the warm fabric of his shirt.   
She didn't care of what had happened, only that the note was still in the farmhouse, and  
they were stuck.  
  
At her feet the letters blazed like an omen.  
  
*I'm Watching You!!!!!!* 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen  
  
Sarah tore herself away from Jareth, forcibly remembering what he had just done.   
What they had just done. Mimi was packed down in clothes, tramping through the back  
door to get to the barn, where she had kept her dead husband's old rifle, wrapped in oil  
clothes in the loft. Something kept her from hiding the gun away in the house, while Toby  
was there.  
  
"Funny," Jareth began as he stood solemnly, hands clasped behind his back,  
looking out the large bay window in the living room, "this life you chose."  
  
"Fuck you!" Sarah muttered as he turned his head just enough so that she could  
see the caustic grin that touched his lips. His eyes were dark, shadowed in the semi-light  
of the living room and the eerie glow from the snow outside. It had grown so that it  
scraped the bottom edge of the window.  
  
She pressed her hand to her mouth a moment as she thought, looking at Jareth's  
backlit form against the dark of the window. Watching him standing there, Sarah could  
almost think that she was fifteen again, the incentive of her once great determination  
welled inside and she got up, sturdy on assured legs.  
  
"Why are you here?!" Sarah demanded.  
  
Jareth tilted his head to the side and then slowly brought two elegantly white hands  
up to the curtains. His leather gloves were gone. They clutched the thick material and,  
with a snap, he drew them closed and turned to acknowledge his truest adversary.  
  
"Did you really want to know?" Jareth inquired.  
  
"I have a right. I was the one who made you!"  
  
At this Jareth breeched her personal space, grabbing her flailing hands in a tight  
grip as he slid himself so near to her that she saw only his flashing eyes. His mouth moved  
against her cheek, and she felt the smooth sturdiness of his teeth against her jawbone, his  
breath tantalizing her flesh.  
  
"I wouldn't be so cocky, Sarah," he said, breathing in her scent as one hand jerked  
her head back by her long hair.  
  
Sarah cried out briefly, until she realized that one hand was free from his restraint.   
Reaching back, she grabbed his pale, vulnerable hand, and dug her manicured fingernails  
into the flesh. Jareth recoiled, letting her free as she stood her ground. "Times change,  
Jareth. I'm not fifteen anymore."  
  
"I've realized as much," he purred, his hand healed from the semi-circle incisions  
she had inflicted a moment ago. Her heart pattered at the realization when he snapped his  
fingers in front of her face and she jumped back a good foot, hopelessly intimidated. Then  
he began to move around her, skirting the coffeetable without so much as a sideways  
glance towards it.  
  
She wiped her hands on her slacks and lifted her chin upwards, revealing a dark  
bruise on the left side, where he had bitten her earlier. Not everything was made to appear  
as if their sex had never happened. The twinkle of approval in his eyes hindered her  
infuriated statements, as did the sound of footsteps on the stairs.  
  
"Sarah?!" Toby cried out, leaping down with a fervor as Jareth, scowling, turned  
away from his prey. Sarah rushed out, her hair falling, fortunately, across the marks over  
her pale skin.  
  
She met Toby in a firm embrace, and she could almost feel his heart rushing like a  
hammer against his ribcage. "What happened?" she demanded, pushing him out at arms  
length. His baby-powder eyes flicked momentarily towards Jareth, and the brilliant  
splotches of red on his cheeks immediately turned ashen.  
  
"The attic window was shattered," he whispered, his eyes even wider than they  
had been before.  
  
"Did you lock up the door?" Sarah demanded, her hold on her brother tightening  
as she felt her adrenalin pump wildly into her body. Fight or flight, her entire system  
seemed to demand. Toby nodded in response to her question and then slipped his arms  
out of her hands, as Sarah relinquished her hold on him. "God."  
  
The back door clattered open, a deep bellow of wind cascading throughout the  
living room as it did. Sarah heard plates fall, clattering to the linoleum, and the pressure in  
the farmhouse seemed to drop. Everything was quiet for a moment, and then the door  
slammed again, and they all heard footsteps, sogged down with snow and sopping wet.  
  
"Mimi?!" Sarah called, running to the kitchen just as her aunt flung open the door.   
She had the gun under her arms, and her thick scarf was completely plastered against her  
head and her neck. She stripped herself from it, looking much more old than she had ever  
seemed before.  
  
"Worst SnowBlind in years. Toby, get the transister," Mimi ordered, as she let the  
coat fall from around her and walked, shivering, to the fire where she kneeled down and  
was tempted to jerk her numb hands into the enticing flames. She turned briefly towards  
her neice and offered Sarah a sympathetic smile. "Come sit by the fire with me. You too  
Gabriel."  
  
Sarah cringed at the sound of the phoney name. Jareth merely dropped her a  
subtle grin and walked over nearer the fire. "Toby said the attic window was broken in."   
Sarah managed as she sat beside Mimi and wrapped one arm around the older woman's  
shoulders. She laid her head on Mimi's shoulder and watched the fire dancing in front of  
them.  
  
"Just trying to scare you, Baby," Mimi whispered, touching Sarah's head absently,  
never truly committed to the movement.   
  
The air whispered behind her and Sarah turned to watch Jareth traversing the room  
to the stairs. He stood there solemnly, watching them. Sarah knew that his enticing eyes  
were on her, his darkly cloaked face ominous in the dull shadows. She wanted to look at  
him, to show that she could take whatever it was he dished out, but she didn't. Instead  
she shivered and tucked in nearer to Mimi.  
  
"I'd suggest we stay together," Jareth began, dropping his hand on the banister.   
For a moment the house trembled, and this time Sarah did look accusingly at him.  
  
"What!" Sarah demanded, making Mimi jerk beside her.  
  
Jareth merely shrugged and, narrowing his mysterious eyes, his face darkened. In  
another moment the house stopped shaking and he began to take the stairs, slowly, one at  
a time. "Gabriel!" Mimi called after him, getting to her knees as he joints ground together.   
The first cold snap always signalled a stiffness to her joints. "Thought we were staying  
together?... Toby!"  
  
Mimi grabbed hold of the fireplace as she worked her way up and hurried her way  
back into the kitchen at the response of the boy. Once more Sarah was alone, trying to  
watch the flames. But she saw him in the corner of her eye, at the middle of the stairs ,  
standing solemnly.  
  
"Come with me Sarah," Jareth spoke naturally, but an electricity filled the air, like  
static. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up abruptly and Sarah moved her eyes  
towards him. And she saw the black silk across him, again.  
  
"What do YOU want?!" Sarah bit out, her temper, usually restrained, had boiled to  
the surface. In the midst of hysteria she jumped up and ran at him, grabbing hold of his  
slender arms as he had done earlier.   
  
She didn't know what she was doing, but she felt their bodies smack together,  
landing on the painful points of the carpeted stairs. Jareth wooshed out air beneath her,  
but his laughter filled the farmhouse, cynical and dark. So dark. Sarah felt herself  
growing so small beneath the pressure, as she tore at his silk, crying and screaming.  
  
The sound of a transister radio snapped on, white noise of an off-channel filled the  
air. Sarah rose, clutching soft fabric in her hands. But he wasn't beneath her anymore.   
Her mouth tasted bloody, and she wiped it. A single smear of blood was stained across  
her hand as she held it out to see.   
  
"Did I fall?" she thought to herself, letting the black fabric fall.  
  
As it hit the ground it disintigrated, like ash. A little pile of black powder as fine as  
cocaine. Sarah ran one finger through it, and then watched in horror as it drifted into the  
air as if it had caught a breeze. Another window open???? But it danced and swirled so  
unnaturally, straight up the stairs, fading away where the electric lights stopped.  
  
*Cross-Roads County, Kettle County, the greater urban areas of Calumet....*  
  
Sarah heard the distant sound of an announcer as she picked herself up, sniffing  
briefly, to traverse the stairs. She could see the faintest glow up there, like a beacon.   
Maybe there was someone waiting.   
  
*Jareth*  
  
Her voice filled her mind, seemed to echo around her as if she had screamed it.   
Then his laughter began again, dipping her into a strange atmosphere of unease. Sarah  
moved back at the touch of a cobweb against her cheek, banging her hip against the  
banister. A little picture of Mimi's parents clattered from the wall, toppling over itself  
downstairs.  
  
Sarah turned, seeing each piece of glass as it uniquely shattered and rested on the  
ground. The frame seemed to split in half, one part stopping on the stairs and the other in  
the living room beside the actual picture itself.   
  
*Yes Sarah, come to me.*  
  
A veil of darkness shrouded her a moment, and she felt changed as she finally  
made it to the second floor. Again the light shown, and she knew that it was from her  
room. Sarah moved out her arm, and found a flowing sleeve of black silk, the same she  
had been holding in her hands earlier. She paused momentarily, turning to the wall that  
was no more. Instead an entire length of sparkling mirrors shone out, and reflected back  
an image of a princess, dressed in black chifon and silk, tight fit to her body.  
  
*Why are you calling me?* once more her voice filled the void around her as she  
walked, seemingly slower than she would have naturally.  
  
*Sarah, Sarah... my dark angel. Come to me*  
  
She lifted her heavy skirts and kicked the black shoes off of her feet, feeling the  
plush of some furry carpet beneath her feet. She let her toes sink in as she sprung  
forward, into a run. The room grew further from her and Sarah reached out frantically,  
with her open hand. Flailing to reach it.  
  
*My dark angel. You are my dream, my weaver of spells and worlds and  
promises. Come to me, Sarah.*  
  
She heard his richly accented voice, like a promise of so many things that had  
never happened right in her life. Sareh reached for it, gripping the doorframe as she drug  
herself into the massive entryway and saw the room for the first time. And understood  
that it really wasn't hers anymore.  
  
*Where are we?* she questioned, her mouth not moving, but the words spoken  
anyway as she gaped at the surroundings.  
  
A whole medly of multi-sized black candles rested around the expansive room.   
Sarah stepped beyond the threshold, feeling the air close in on her like the candlight that  
licked across her skin. Like a lover. She shivered beneath it, looking for the man who had  
called her. Her King. Jareth.  
  
And she saw his shape resting on the bed, surrounded by the candlelight, like the  
room. A black sheet draped around his body, presenting him like some gift for her. Sarah  
felt her heart beat rise as she moved in closer.   
  
*A dream?* she asked, moving towards him, her lips a dark smudge against her  
face, she saw in another mirror (this one tinted gold). Jareth rose up, his clothes blending  
to the bed sheets. His skin was as pale as twilights, Sarah realized.   
  
*No.... this is what could be Sarah, what could have been.*  
  
He held out his hand a moment, beckoning her to take it. Sarah hesitated, looking  
down at her own hand that was ultimately prepared to accept his invitation to dine in the  
darkness and lust of such sinful fantasies. And a part of her desired it more than anything  
else. A part that had been attracted to Brian, knowing his tendencies. She wanted this  
king to touch her again, like he had done earlier.  
  
Her nails were long, a dark red. She turned her hand over, gazing at a smooth  
palm. *You are my slave.*  
  
*Your fear me... Sarah.*  
  
With his words he drew his hand back to him and began to rise. Jareth tilted his  
head to the side as he observed her, reaching out to touch her. To run his own flawless  
hands into her dark hair, that rested along the subtle curves of her back. Sarah nodded,  
standing for him to take her into his arms.  
  
*You love me.*  
  
*You and I are one, are we not?* she asked, smiling easily. Her seductive grin  
made him move quicker, until his hands worked around the bodice of her gown. They slid  
across it, like sheets on sweaty bodies. Sarah shivered under his touch, rolling her head  
back a moment as his lips pressed against the hollow of her throat.  
  
*Then do as I say*  
  
He grasped her face in his hands and then made her eyes focus on him. And he  
saw in them something that was not Sarah there. She continued to smile her seductive  
smile and then brought her own hands up to lay over his. This time her mouth opened and  
Jareth felt something inside him worry, just for a moment.  
  
"Jareth.... You have no power over me."  
  
Her smile sparked the end of the illusion. And then she heard the storm again, and  
felt the true terror return. Brian was inside. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Okay, this is the last chapter I have done. I'll try to get one written up shortly, but it'll probably we a while before its posted here. I'm sorry guys, Thanks to all of you for the great comments, I really appreciate them!  
Molly  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Fifteen  
  
She felt the breath on her back a moment before the hand secured over her slender  
arm. He wrenched her backwards, colliding her body against his, and a steel blade  
balanced the light near her throat. Sarah peered behind her, but only saw a single hand,  
flawless, brandishing the weapon. His breath smelled like rotting fish, as it drifted over  
her.  
  
"Thought you got away, didn't you?!" he demanded, jerked the knife in further so  
that it dug against her smooth flesh.  
  
Sarah swallowed, her throat working against the blade carefully. When she didn't  
answer he tightened his hold on her and then led her, keeping the knife in close proximity,  
down the staircase. The scene from moments earlier had vanished, leaving nothing but a  
typical farmhouse.  
  
"Mimi... TOBY!!!" Sarah screamed. Brian grabbed hold of both her arms and  
hurtled her against the banister, where she struck and crumpled to the stairs, slipping  
down a few before catching herself again. She looked up at her husband and shuddered.  
  
Maybe agreeing to the Dark King had been a better option.  
  
"The one you should be worried about is yourself," Brian stated calmly as he ran  
his hand over her head.  
  
For a moment she was quiet, speechless, feeling his fingers brushing along her  
scalp like when they had been newlyweds. Then he clenched her hair, forcing her head  
back and her chin up, so that she looked into his eyes. His silvery-blue eyes that seemed  
so close to white that she could have almost mistaken him for a demon.  
  
He clicked his tongue and tilted his head to the side, his brows going up in mock  
concern. With a long sigh Brian touched the whetted blade to either of her pale cheeks,  
letting it bury itself deep enough to spring crimson trail over her skin. Sarah cringed  
away, and his hand in her hair tightened.  
  
"Shouldn't have fucked with me," he whispered, deadly in the SnowBlind.  
  
Sarah sniffed back the tears that had sparked in her eyes from the sudden pain  
flaring in her cheeks. She tried to wipe the flow of blood, and Brian's boot connected  
with her arm. Another flash of white agony.   
  
She hitched in a short breath and then, not thinking twice, kicked blindly out  
towards Brian. The sole of her shoe connected firmly with his kneecap, that buckled  
under the force of the impact. Brian, losing his balance, slunk almost gracefully to the  
stairs and toppled the rest of the way down... like the picture and the frame had done  
earlier.  
  
"I will FUCK with you! Leave me alone!" Sarah screamed, pressing her hands  
into the blood on her cheeks. She wiped it carelessly on her jeans and then hurried herself  
down the stairs.   
  
Brian was rising, but the way he shook his head assured Sarah that she had time.   
Time enough to run again. He looked up at her as she jumped past him. In an undying  
thirst for revenge he swung the blade at her again, nicking her shoe, but doing no real  
damage. Sarah just rushed into the living room, and stopped immediately.  
  
"Jareth!" she remarked, breathlessly.  
  
He sat in the middle of the uncomfortable couch, gazing at Sarah with something  
resembling interest and amusement. He flashed her a toothy grin and brought his hands  
together firmly. "Well now, what shall you do?" he asked, smiling all the more at her  
sudden look back towards the floundering husband.  
  
She had been strong long enough, and had faced more trials in one life than many  
others could ever make it through in ten. Sarah staggered towards the King, who looked  
decidedly less regal than he had earlier. He was pale, and his black satin was exchanged  
for a faded white, that hung on his bones as if he had suddenly aged.   
  
*Where the hell are Mimi and Toby?* Sarah thought belatedly as she looked over  
the emptiness. From some vague part of her mind she could feel them, knew they were  
alive. Maybe tied up.  
  
"Kill him," Sarah stated, her voice cool as ice as she leveled Jareth with her dead  
eyes. Blank and naked eyes, devoid of the luster of childhood and innocence.  
  
Jareth quirked one elegant eyebrow in response and reached over to take the  
leather gloves from atop the cofeetable. With slow precision he slipped first one on and  
then the other, and finally acknowledged Sarah again. "Now, why should I do that?" he  
asked, looking behind Sarah to note Brian's progress in gathering himself back together.  
  
"God, Jareth, please!" Sarah also looked at him, just as Brian lunged out with the  
blade. He skidded to one side and struck the wall, falling over again. Brian curse, and  
Jareth smirked as he urged Sarah on with a slight nod of his head. "Whatever... whatever  
you want you can have. Please!"  
  
"But what if there is nothing more I want of you?" he inquired, rising from the sofa  
as elegantly as a swan awash in milky feathers. Sarah seemed blank at the question and  
then approached him until they were so near he could smell the beads of sweat across her  
brow.  
  
"Bullshit! Don't you care, Jareth? Don't you fucking...," she trailed off as his  
reached out to hold her chin in his hand. The leather of his gloves sent shivers across  
Sarah's spine. Shivers she didn't like.  
  
"Sarah!" Brian slurred, he was propping himself against the TV, staring at her  
intensely, and Jareth merely smiled back at him.  
  
"Care, Sarah?" he asked, brushing his thumb over her trembling lips. Jareth  
looked into her eyes as if looking directly into her soul. Then, grinning sardonically he  
dropped her chin and turned to walk back to the sofa, "At one time I did, I wanted you,  
and I've had you. And now, he can have you."  
  
Jareth gestured towards Brian and then grinned all the more. Frantically Sarah  
looked backwards, and noticed her husband charging for her, his knife held out with  
precision. Sarah leapt back, and felt the blade slice through the front of her silk shirt. A  
fine slit spread open, revealing her flat stomach beneath.  
  
Brian turned again, only slightly slower than his natural speed. He grinned, very  
similar to Jareth's, and then slowly stalked towards her, beckoning her closer with his  
finger. "Darling, Baby, Lover.... come to Daddy," he whispered, spreading out his arms  
for her.  
  
"Get away from me!" Sarah screamed shrilly, her voice snapping as she backed  
away, back towards the stairs.  
  
She paused, her heel slipping in a wet puddle. Briefly she looked to her side and  
noticed the front door. *A door, a way out* Sarah looked around herself, and reached  
for a vase that rested on an ornate stand. Brian snickered as she brandished the vase over  
her head.   
  
"You can't win," Brian assured her.  
  
"Shut up!" Sarah demanded. She hurled the vase at him, and he dropped the knife.   
  
*The knife, the fucking knife, where did it go? Oh god, where is it?*  
  
Brian lunged for her as she bent to the ground, searching the smooth floor for the  
glinting metal. He hurled her back, and against the nearest wall. A shudder, and a few  
more pictures fell, shattering, to the ground. Sarah cringed, her ears thrumming from the  
impact. She struggled back towards her husband, bringing her balled fists down hard into  
the middle of his back.  
  
"Shit!" Brian yelped, folding over as his weak back sparked like fireworks with  
pained nerve endings.  
  
Sarah scuttled over the ground, tossing throw pillows away, towards Brian. He  
was muttering to himself. Sarah turned, saw him rising, and immediately leapt to her feet.   
"GET AWAY!" Sarah yelled, stepped down, squarely on the arch of his foot. Once more  
he was incapacitated in pain.  
  
For a fleeting moment Sarah looked at Jareth, and he merely blinked. His cold  
acceptance singed her deeply and she rushed for the door. "You'll die out there," he  
whispered.  
  
Briefly Sarah wondered why Brian hadn't seen Jareth. Why he had been so  
violently attacking her when he saw another man in the house. But then, few things made  
sense anymore. It was, after all, very possibly magic. Sarah grabbed the door handle and  
jerked it open, briefly wallowing in a sea of snow that spilled in around her. An intense  
cold numbed her immediately.  
  
"I'll die in here," Sarah hissed, and then plunged into the white abyss that yearned  
to swallow her up.  
  
Jareth rose from his seat, and passed by Brian, swearing as he rushed to the door  
to stand in the entryway and look for her. The man never noticed the King, not once.   
Jareth hesitated to look at the once handsome face of Sarah's husband and then shook his  
head. The cold wouldn't hurt him, not now. He lifted himself easily into it, and breached  
the weather.  
  
Sarah was crawling down the drive, near the old barn. The snow had slowed, just  
enough so that he could see her, but that meant also that Brian could follow much easier.   
Jareth looked and wasn't surprised to see the ass leaping out, after his wife. Murder was  
in the air.  
  
*My dark, secret angel. Where have you gone?*  
  
Sarah started at the rich voice floating into her mind, as she drug herself to her  
feet, holding the frame of the barn. She looked back, just barely noticing the outline of the  
King in the storm. Why he had braved the weather was beyond her, but it didn't matter  
either. All that mattered was getting into the barn. Sarah pulled the sliding door open and  
sneaked inside, instantly overwhelmed with the smell of old animals, long since gone, and  
hay.  
  
*My prince of death, my solitude and my solace. My love and death, and vile  
cursed potion. Why have you forsaken me?*  
  
Sarah's thoughts were as mournful as any great tragedy. She slipped in the slick  
hay, falling, face-first. She bustled through it, towards the ladder she had noticed against  
the far wall. Ladders always led to a way out, didn't they?  
  
And, just as she had reached the middle of the rickety ladder, both doors suddenly  
burst open. Sarah jerked her head around, watching the figure in the middle of the spray  
of snow (almost like a spray of the sea). She then, fearful for her life all over again,  
hurried her way to the loft, where the hay spilled down to the first floor.  
  
"Sarah," it was Jareth, walking into the barn, leaving it wide open for Brian. He  
wanted her dead too. She huddled down nearer the hay.  
  
The only sound was her struggled breaths, rushing in and out her lungs with little  
meek squeaks. Sarah buried her face in the hay, bidding herself to be silent. Below she  
could hear Jareth walking the length of the barn, searching for her in the piles of hay, the  
old stalls, or every dark corner.  
  
"I can't help but think that, should you die, I would suffer some great deal of  
pain," he admitted, pausing in the very center of the barn. Outside Sarah could imagine  
Brian growing nearer, but she couldn't help but find her curiosity sparked with Jareth's  
comment.  
  
"You see, my dear, we are one... whether you admit it or not. Sarah, show  
yourself!" Jareth demanded.  
  
*Its a lie*  
  
The thought flew immediately to Jareth and at once he fixed his gaze on her hiding  
spot. He had located her. But, as he had spoken earlier, there was no need to give her  
away. Jareth paused there, looking to where she would be, and then backed away into the  
shadows. Brian had grown near.  
  
"Come into me, Sarah," Jareth said, though his words were clearly in Sarah's mind  
alone.  
  
She lifted her head slightly, and noted a dark shadow down below. Brian. His  
uneven steps echoed up to her. Sarah slunk down deeper, shivering. What choice did she  
have anymore?   
  
*KILL HIM!*  
  
Jareth smirked, walking out from the shadows into which he had hidden. His pale  
white figure became a blanched mark against the darkness of the barn. And Brian gasped.   
Sarah heard him gasp and then shriek like a girl. Below Sarah felt such intense evil  
pouring out, and she curled herself into a ball.   
  
Brian screamed and the Goblin King laughed.  
  
*I have played this game enough, Sarah. I'll take the beast, but you have now  
given yourself to me. Come to me, Sarah.*  
  
The blood hung stale and metallic in the air, in the dismal barn. But Sarah rose  
from her hiding place, feeling Jareth's words hanging in her mind. And suddenly, there  
were candles across the barn, and she was on a staircase.  
  
And Jareth was holding a goblet at the foot of the stairs, filled with wine... blood  
red. 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen  
  
She came to him, her clothes tattered and her body badly bruised. But as she  
walked her skin became porcelain- flawless, and her hair coiled up into a network of tight  
brunette spirals that cascaded down her elegant neck along the smooth silk of a ruby  
dress. Sarah stopped in front of him and opened wide her eyes that had been a vague  
hazel and now glowered black in the night.  
  
He offered to her the goblet of red wine, and she took it into her hands and lifted it  
to her burgundy lips. Sarah drank hungrily, tasting the bouquet of flavors at the back of  
her tongue, where it lingered and tingled even as she lowered the cup and looked at  
Jareth, licking her wet lips.  
  
In the background the snow beat against the old barn and it creaked and moaned in  
protest. Sarah drew the goblet away, held it in her right hand and then, as she reached to  
touch Jareth's face with her left, let it fall to the hay-covered ground. There it shattered  
and bits of crystal scattered as they danced and cartwheeled over old planked, but  
strangely dark wood. Sarah smiled again and let her nailtips etch the path of Jareth's  
highly arched cheekbones.  
  
*Prince of night* Sarah's voice filled the air between them as she tilted her head  
just slightly. Inside herself she felt something blossom and fill her so completely that she  
wished for nothing more than to water it and make it grow until it consumed all that she  
had been.  
  
He touched the curve of her neck with the smooth and supple leather of his gloves  
and carefully bent to brush his mouth against hers. Sarah sighed against him and then he  
jerked and his head bent towards the door where his icy eyes fixed. Voices from outside.   
  
*Mimi* Sarah thought briefly, and for a moment the dark veil fell from around her  
and she felt herself stepping back into the reality. Jareth was there first, and he led her,  
willingly, back into a fantasy that was the deepest and most surreal aspect of the human  
mind. As if they stepped into the very ID of the subconscious level. Freud would have  
enjoyed it immensely.  
  
Into the spot where they had once been a shaft of flickering lantern light fell,  
briefly blown into a vivid dance by the gust of ice wind behind the two figures at the barn  
door. Mimi struggled within, bundling Toby underneath her arm as she forced the heavy  
doors closed. Again the barn creaked and moaned and Toby shivered as he looked for his  
step-sister.   
  
"SARAH!" he called and his voice echoed along with that of the storm.  
  
Mimi walked the line of the lower level of the barn, letting the light of the candle  
within the protective lantern fall across the slick hay and the rotten wood. Worm holes  
and black mold ate into the barn. She felt the weak points beneath her old sneakers, that  
were soaked through from the short battle with the snow and the deep drifts.   
  
And then Mimi stopped and Toby, from near the ladder, heard her drop the lantern  
and it shatter. He startled and turned just as the last light left the barn, and heard Mimi cry  
out hopelessly- like a lamb bleating before the slaughter.   
  
He crawled his way towards her, feeling for her with nothing but the sound of her  
horrified and struggled breaths leading his way. "Mimi?" Toby asked, his own voice so  
quiet that it sounded small and dead in the vast and empty barn. There was no answer.   
But he felt a sneaker stuck out of the hay and Toby stopped, poking the leg to get his  
aunt's attention.  
  
"Mimi!" Toby demanded and crawled nearer to her. He moved the hay out of the  
way, scuttling over the ground until he was on his knees and reaching to hold her hands.   
But they were cold, icy, and he could still see little more than vague shadows that were  
slightly more dark than the already horrible darkness.   
  
He tried to say something again, but the feel of the rubbery skin, so dull and  
lifeless, instantly struck him. With a trembling hand Toby reached out, and found his  
fingertips brushing the dull stubble of a chin that hadn't been shaved that day, and the  
glossy gel of open eyes.  
  
He shrieked and backed away, until he run solidly into the wall and then, jumping  
to his feet, Toby clawed the wood until his fingernails bent back and his own blood  
became thick across the lacerated flesh.   
  
* * * * *  
  
Sarah found herself again in the middle of a wide black maze, with a brilliantly  
dark night sky overhead, scattered with sharp stars and a sickly yellow moon. She turned  
and looked the night over for the snow, but saw nothing, and felt little more. Silence so  
thick that it soaked into her dress, encased her. And she felt a presence of raw energy in  
the horrible air.  
  
The shared mind and thoughts she had, since then, felt with herself and the King,  
was gone. Severed and cut, and she felt as hollow as if she had had a child taken from  
her. Sarah turned again and watched her hair drift evenly back into place. It had been  
loosed from the tight coils.  
  
And her dress was gone, and she was in jeans and a white shirt that billowed out at  
the sleeves. Sarah held out her arms and calmly observed her cream vest, one she had  
long ago given to Good Will. Then, as lightening broke the barrier of the clear night,  
Sarah saw the solid outline of the Castle at the center of the Labyrinth highlighted bone  
white against the navy sky.  
  
"Through Dangers Untold....," Sarah mused, and liked her own voice. While she  
had thought herself drawn into her darkest mind, and saw it in the view of the evening, she  
felt another part of herself fighting against the constrains of the festering seed that Jareth  
had planted. With the thought, Sarah smiled.  
  
So she began walking.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Jareth sat on a golden throne and leaned forward, steepling his hands below his  
chin as he watched an image of the girl in his crystal orb that hung, suspended, in the air  
before him. Surrounding the chair, scored of clocks ticked and tocked in unison that was  
almost deafening. The King tilted his head.  
  
"Do you already think yourself winning? Do you already think of me, your King,  
as weak? How quickly those ill perceived thoughts return to minds that have tasted the  
darkness of humanity and enjoyed," Jareth grinned and showed pointed teeth. "But look  
at what you made for me, Sarah... a new kingdom."  
  
Another bolt of blue lightening tore the sky in half and rumbled the castle just  
enough to remind Jareth of the weak foundations. Something was tearing the fabric of his  
rebirth, and the ageless spirit within Jareth raged against her disobedience. His face grew  
dark a moment, and his eyes became white orbs that danced with electricity. Just as  
quickly, though, he had returned and Jareth merely smiled more broadly and turned away  
from the crystal.  
  
He rose from the throne, clasped his hands into the small of his back, and began  
humming as the night danced behind him.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Sarah jogged down a thin passage that led downwards and downwards, until she  
thought she would dive right beneath the castle. A vague sound of water echoed off the  
walls, and traveled to her as a ceaseless dripping, and then a slow flowing, and finally it  
sounded as if there was a creek that was running no more than a foot ahead.  
  
The mystery was answered as she stepped into it and felt water spatter across her  
stonewashed jeans. Sarah recoiled and looked over her shoulder, nervously sensing the  
eyes upon her that were His. "You gave me something, Jareth..." she trailed off and  
smiled as she watched the water change its coarse as it missed a pale purple book, laying  
face down in the middle of the stream.  
  
Sarah bent and retrieved the book, turning it over and snapping it closed firmly.   
Ahead of her the brook faded and nothing more save dark bricks of masonry remained  
behind. The tunnel shook and the walls cracked and Sarah stood silently as she waited.   
But that was all that happened, and soon the walls were as strong as they had been before,  
though somewhat more transparent.  
  
The illusion was fading.  
  
She turned and walked up a set of wooden stairs, that were left behind when the  
flow of water faded. Sarah tucked the book tight against herself, trying hard to remember  
back before Jareth. But there wasn't much. She felt his eyes upon her, and felt the  
darkness he had loosed within her begin to bubble and fight to infect her again.   
  
Her white shirt had turned a deep black.  
  
The stairs ended at a mirror, and Sarah stood before it looking at a girl she had  
once known so long ago... herself. Herself when she was fourteen and when she had  
defeated the King the first time. Herself when she first experienced therapy, when she cut  
the threads and lost her friends, when she left the Underground in sad ruins, and a King to  
wander homeless back into her life.  
  
Why she had had no power over him was the most perplexing of all.   
  
But then, he had had no power over her. Now, the tables had turned and suddenly  
she felt herself encased in his hands. As she watched the mirror her eyes grew black and  
became as deep and dark as her pupil. The sclera was starkly white as she widened her  
eyes and groaned.  
  
"I have fought my way here to the castle!" she cried out, and drew her arm back  
with a brief sob. Sneering, her elbow connected and the glass shattered. Sarah breathed  
in and out as she listened to the glass spread out across the ground before her.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Jareth jerked as he heard the sound of breaking glass. *She has the book* his  
mind cried out as he raced back into his throne room. And there she was, calmly  
observing him with eyes so black he thought he would be lost in them.   
  
"Jareth," she whispered, realizing the power that was in saying his name. He lifted  
his head higher and took a single step nearer her.  
  
"I gave you another chance here, Sarah, in the Underground. You have made it  
much more to my liking this time around," his sardonic grin was wavering and she  
matched it with her own.  
  
Sarah held out the book and sighed. "I thought I was lost when you gave me this  
darkness. It destroyed me, for a moment," she turned the corners of her mouth down as  
she threw the book across the room. It slid obscurely into the farthest corner. "Was this  
your plan all along? Give me another book, tempt me, seduce me, win me, overcome  
me?!" She breathed deep and rushed upon him, grasping hold of his arms so tightly that  
he hissed in air. "You wanted me so that I can give you new life and finally set you free."  
  
She brushed the side of his face with the back of her hand. Jareth was silent. He  
looked into her blazing eyes and then reached out to grasp her face and force it forward.   
He seared them together with a kiss, bruising her lips against her teeth. Her hands raked  
through his hair and across his back.  
  
Then, he pushed her back, and she could feel her hold over the situation slip.   
Sarah looked long at the book in the corner, until Jareth began to walk around her. "You  
are a vessel, in which I inherited a kingdom in a fantasy so rich that it was reality. I was  
birthed in your dreams, Sarah, but not the first time." He pounced in on her and she fell  
backwards, watching him become great and glorious, like an antichrist framed in black  
fire.  
  
He knelt down over her, crouching low so that his aquiline face was mere inches  
from hers. Now it was he who stroked her face and she trembled under the touch. "But  
we became more than host and guest," he grinned briefly at the analogy, "You have my  
own self within you, and I, am hopelessly connected with your own life energy. Do you  
see, Sarah, no matter what you do, I will always exist."  
  
He leaned back and gripped the soft fabric of both her vest and her shirt. Sarah  
watched plaintively, shuddering only once as he tore the clothing open and revealed her  
naked to his empowered eyes. Her jeans shredded and fell around her, nothing more than  
scraps, and Jareth knew that he had her completely. 


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen  
  
Warm hands fastened around Toby's trembling arms and he screamed as his eyes  
rolled up and around. "Toby, honey," Mimi whispered against his face as she pulled him  
nearer to her. Like a newborn kitten, the young boy instinctively gripped for her warmth  
and hid his face in close to her familiar-smelling clothes. She still had an aroma of cooking  
around her, despite the eventful night.  
  
"A-A B-body," Toby stammered moving his eyes just a bit to insinuate in which  
direction he had seen the dead man.... or rather felt him.  
  
Mimi nodded and carefully ushered Toby away from the corpse. She ran her hand  
over his golden-brown hair and kissed the top of his head affectionately. Toby was silent,  
and his gray face was emotionless as he let her lead him towards the barn's double-wide  
doors with the chipping pain and old wood.  
  
Then a thought resurfaced in his mind and Toby turned his face up to look at  
Mimi, "What about Sarah?" he asked and then carefully looked over his shoulder into the  
darkness. Mimi pressed his face against her and then continued their way towards the  
doors.  
  
"Gabriel's with her," Mimi whispered and glanced at Toby with a wan smile  
stretched over her thin skin.  
  
Toby shivered and his face seemed to pale even more at the comment. He  
wrapped his arms around himself and continued the rest of the way out of the barn with  
Mimi. The snowstorm outside had subsided, but the snow was so deep that both took the  
greater part of an hour making their way back to the house, which was nothing more than  
a white shadow in the night.  
  
When the returned to the house they slipped out of wet and heavy clothes, started  
the fire again (which had died during the attack) and tried in desperation to get a phone  
connection. All lines were down, or so Mimi assumed, because the phone was dead in her  
hands, and the only light was offered by the candles she and Toby lit around the living  
room.  
  
Then they sat on the couch and Toby laid his head in Mimi's lap, shuddering and  
shivering as he thought about Sarah and Gabriel.  
  
* Gabriel's with her.* He heard Mimi's voice in his mind again as he let his heavy  
lids slide over his burning eyes.  
  
*That's what I'm afraid of,* he thought to himself and then, shivering all the more,  
he slowly spiraled down into an uncomfortable sleep.  
  
* * * * *  
Excerpt from: The Nightingale Dreams  
Published: 1900, NY  
By: Mary Ann Remington  
  
  
..."The printing press had finished the story even though the editor had been  
steadily against it. Such discrepancies rarely passed Mr. Berminghand, and on an occasion  
of the prominence as was the day and the popularity of the name in the scandalous article,  
most were taken aback to see it blazing out from the front page, below a picture of the  
largest and whitest building in all of the city.  
Annabelle Lawson, laying weak and paled in her bed, beneath the thickest Parisian  
silk blanket that her father had managed, was the most surprised of all when her nanny  
entered. Annabelle looked once at Elizabeth, her Irish nanny with a thick girth and curled  
red locks poking from under her white bonnet, and became even more ill with fright.  
"They've printed the episode from last night," she spoke, exhausted as she had  
been awake through the night tending to her little mistress. Annabelle was peaked as she  
turned her thin face away.  
"Where is my father?" Annabelle questioned.  
"Not now, Annie, I have new medicine from the physician. It should help you with  
your sleep. They're speaking of terrible things as of late, and its best you heal yourself  
before the physician convinces your parents of anything but the best for you," Elizabeth  
said and turned quickly to usher the family doctor into the large bed chambers.  
He pulled a cord around her arm and, as Annabelle watched with wide and  
frightened eyes, he embedded the beveled needle into the fold of her arm and slowly  
injected the cloudy substance within the syringe.  
"She'll sleep now," he said as he took his black bag in hand and left Annabelle  
alone... Elizabeth shut the door.  
As she turned she saw the little glass nightingale standing near her bed, with ruby  
eyes that sparked. Annabelle smiled as her eyes drew closed, pulling heavy on her  
stretched skin. She had lost much weight over the duration of her illness. Even though it  
seemed to be much more than just the affliction all else had been treating it as.  
*sleep sweet angel, and into the dreams of the nightingale I will be born at last*  
The rich voice swallowed her whole and Annabelle let her head slip back as a wan  
smile touched her pale lips, thin above her pearly teeth. "Prince of the Underground, I  
thought you gone," her own voice rose, lilting, from her mouth, and the door to her  
chambers opened. Elizabeth had been waiting outside, standing still and silent to listen for  
the delusions again.   
"Dear angels in heaven and my lord above," Elizabeth breathed as she felt her heart  
rise into her throat.  
Annabelle, though sedated to a point that would make any grown man drowse,  
was sitting straight in her bed and staring, unblinking, at the nightingale at her side. And  
she was singing a song that Elizabeth had never heard before. The nanny pressed her hand  
to her chest and backed out, trying to make the song go away.  
But it wouldn't. Just as the voice of the Prince of the Underground sang the song  
to Annabelle so she sang it out to the empty room and her little nightingale figurine.  
"As the pain sweeps through, makes no sense to you..."  
  
* * * * *  
  
Jareth lowered himself upon Sarah, his eyes glinting like gold- like a panther. She  
herself felt the changing part of her rear its head again, and step into the last control she  
had gained over herself. With the darkness all around, Sarah reached out and brought  
Jareth down nearer to her, until she urged him to enter her and she arced her neck back in  
a sublime sense of pleasure.  
  
"Accept me, and this," he hissed as he bit down on her neck just enough to make  
her suck in a harsh breath of air.  
  
Sarah was silent though, guiding him closer as she ran her nails over the smooth  
contours of his back. Jareth shivered in response. Deeper and harder and faster and  
faster. Sarah rolled her eyes back and clutched at his lithe body with her hands and her  
legs as his muscles turned taught and rock hard beneath his smooth flesh.  
  
And then all around them the clocks began to chime. First one then another and  
then all together. Sarah and Jareth heard little as they rolled over on the ground and  
suddenly Sarah found herself atop him, looking down into his eyes that shone back mostly  
as they had always- The King. But there was something else now in his eyes, like fear.  
  
With the sound of the clocks the castle began to shake and tremble and Sarah,  
ground her teeth as she felt the power between the mounting and surging forward to meet  
her. "Oh my God," she whispered, breathing out as Jareth's hands reached up to hold her  
nearer.  
  
Then it came upon them, and Sarah's hips ground deeply into the surging energy  
of the moment. All around the clocks were chiming, in a thousand different tones, and  
their unified sound made the masonry of the walls crumble just enough to send small  
spirals of dust up and around the two as they slowed and finally laid beside each other.  
  
*There you go, darling, you can have your body back again* the venomous voice  
of the darkness within Sarah seemed to say as she slid hopelessly and helplessly up to her  
elbows to look at a shard of glass that had once been the mirror she had broken in her  
determination to triumph as she had so many years before.  
  
Such would not be the case this time, or so she feared as she looked at her face in  
the piece of the mirror and saw the dark orbs of her eyes staring back. It wasn't herself  
that she saw anymore. Sarah jumped away, sliding over the ground as Jareth's laughter  
added to the chiming of the clocks... on and on into eternity.  
  
It was then, scuttling across the uneven ground, that she found herself huddled in  
the corner, beside the little purple book she had tossed, carelessly, aside. Sarah reached  
out, her bare body trembling and in adequate as Jareth rose to stand tall above her, fully  
dressed in cloak made from black leather, that whipped around his sleek frame like a storm  
reading to be raging.  
  
"Now, Sarah, its time for us to speak of just what it is that you can do for me," he  
whispered and cracked a sly smile that sparked fire in his eyes.  
  
Desperate, Sarah brought the little book to her chest and tried to remember just  
who she was... certainly not this dark thing that she had seen in the mirror. She wasn't a  
beast, and she, above all else, was not part of this King- as he had time and again claimed.  
  
"I'll do nothing for you!" she hissed in response, and he bent down near her with  
lightning speed in response to her harsh statement. Jareth cocked his head and then,  
brutally, grabbed hold of her arms and easily threw her back to the ground as a rich  
laughter floated from his mouth.  
  
"Your no match for me Sarah... and you never were," he tossed his loose mane of  
golden hair over his shoulders and then went to the window were he leaned out to watch  
the sun begin to rise over the horizon of trees in the far distance- past the labyrinth itself.   
Sarah, willing herself not to cry, flipped her head up and looked at him with as much  
disgust and hate as she could manage.   
  
She dropped the book and let it fall- open to the middle where a piece of folded,  
yellow paper marked the place. Sarah's hand hesitated on the old and frail page as her  
eyes blurred and she hitched in a controlled breath. "I beat you once!" she demanded and  
Jareth scoffed in immediate response to her allegations.  
  
"A trifle discrepancy," he turned to look at her and he smiled such a smile that  
Sarah shivered. Jareth looked hungry. "But, perhaps you could have really bested me, had  
you been whole and taken in the part of you that was me all along. Do you think I've  
been like this from the start, Sarah? I have a been a thousand faces and times, always  
changing with my hostess. You, darling, are merely the most recent and most intriguing  
of the lot."  
  
It was then that she looked down, her head spinning with Questions. Sarah ran a  
finger over the single sheet of loose paper and then, breathing in deep as Jareth turned to  
watch the sun a moment longer, she opened it quickly and began to read.  
  
* * * * *  
  
  
  
  
23 May 1904  
Dearest Diary:  
I have seen him in every waking moment, the man from my dreams who bid me first to  
write this story and then took over my ever-active mind. He comes to me dressed like a  
gentleman, as I have told you any number of times. But now, diary, I think my mind is  
heading into a downwards spiral. My colleagues- the few who I will tell of this, my horrid  
plight- have given me names of doctors who deal with maladies of the mind. Mine is as much.   
If I find no help then I'm sure I will be as poorly off as Annabelle (I relate more  
and more often to her as of late) and locked away in the largest and whitest building of our large  
city.   
I have been soiled by his hands and his lips. My husband, dear Edward, must  
never know of the primal passion that has sent fire into my loins. A horrible ecstasy it is, with  
each bit of myself I give to this King (Prince of the Underground?) I became more  
and more like him. Or perhaps I merely lose more and more control to him. I think that  
what has started as a production of my muse has taken on a life of his own. It is, in essence,  
my Frankenstien.  
I hear him calling me now. Dear God diary, what future is there for me. I  
come my Prince, I come.  
Mary Ann Remington  
  
* * * * *  
  
Sarah's heart beat hard and her mind spun so that she didn't sense the presence  
over her, until it was too late. Jareth took the diary entry from her trembling hands and, as  
she slowly fixed him with her eyes, he tore it apart. His face blank, he merely tossed the  
remnants out the window, at which he had been so adamantly gazing.  
  
"What is this?!" Sarah demanded, snapping the book closed and holding it out  
from her naked body like a shield as Jareth came closer to her. He smirked, but flinched at  
the rough handling she gave the book.  
  
"A story," he responded.  
  
Sarah managed a grin as she flipped back the lavender cover and turned to the first  
page. "The Nightingale Dreams" was printed in large type across the top of the page and,  
as she read the author's name at the bottom, Sarah couldn't control the laugh that broke  
through her fear and hate- a single loud and victorious laugh.  
  
"This is your story." 


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen  
  
Jareth lifted his head higher as he heard her speak, a twinge went through his face,  
like a nerve being pinched. "Perhaps," was all he said and let a grin flicker over his  
features.  
  
Sarah slowly rose on legs that drifted beneath her like water. She held the book in  
shaking hands, fingers blanched out against the strongly violet cover. Sarah, deliberately,  
took a step and another towards him. "No, this is yours Jareth! I understand now, its like  
the Labyrinth all over again," she muttered to herself, her eyes flashing like they had done  
when first they met so many years before.  
  
Jareth backed down as she approached, and with each bit of confidence that spun  
and grew withen herself, Sarah's clothes faded in around her slithe body. First the jeans  
and then her white poet's shirt, all the while her grin remained and her eyes shone like two  
hazy stones.   
  
"You infected her mind too, didn't you? This authoress who went mad! And she  
wrote you a life in this book and almost made you something more!!!" Sarah laughed as  
the pieces began to fall into place. Jareth struck the wall behind him as he retreated from  
her, still standing proud, even as the brick began to crumble and masonry dust spiraled up  
around him.  
  
"I was only real with you, Sarah, you made me the King and then you set me free  
from your mind to be- mortal," Jareth shuddered at the word and then fixed Sarah coldly  
with his ice eyes. She tilted her head upwards defiantly and urged him to continue. When  
he said no more she merely shrugged.  
  
"How long have you been this parasite?! How long have you jumped from mind  
to mind of helpless dreamers and made them make you real in their dreams?" Sarah  
stepped over a large hole that had sunk into the ground beneath her feet. She watched as  
the window, through which Jareth had just recently peered, folded in on itself and crashed  
to the ground below... far, far below.  
  
"She could have made me what I am now, but she was afraid. You, Sarah, you   
have the darkest of souls that's just waiting to be wrought," Jareth stepped forward and  
extended a gloved hand to her. It was as it had been when she was young- temptation.   
This time of a different sort. "You, after all, made me real. And now I exist in your  
world, in your dreams, and beyond all that."  
  
Sarah hesitated a moment, looking at his fine-boned hand, supple in the blanket of  
black leather. She felt a beast within her writhe to be let free. For that moment she  
shuddered and she felt her own hand move to be with his. But she turned away and  
looked at the throne, where Jareth must have sat earlier.  
  
"What did you want from me this time?" she inquired, willing the "darkness" of  
which Jareth had spoken, to sink deeper into her psyche.   
  
"A new life," was all he answered and she felt his warm breath against her chilled  
neck. Sarah bent herself away from him, turning quick on her heels to look into his  
chiseled face.  
  
"You wanted me to make you a new kingdom, didn't you? You wanted me to let  
you back into my mind again, until I finally went mad," Sarah ground her teeth together as  
she spoke and behind her, with a brillaint burst of sparks, the throne lit afire. "You  
wanted me to learn from her," she gestured to the book and to Jareth's widened eyes,  
"and make you the King again."  
  
Jareth watched the flames lick over his throne warily. Sarah turned slowly to  
observe it and shuddered once more. "Sarah," Jareth inquired. But she didn't respond.   
Instead she walked to the fire, her hands still trembling as they held the lavender book.   
She paused, feeling the lick of warmth across her skin- only Jareth hadn't caused the  
tingles this time.  
  
"You do not control my mind, decision, life, or body! If I had ever loved you  
before then its gone now!" Sarah drew her arm back and then, as Jareth stood stone-still,  
she tossed the lavendar book into the flames. At once the King screamed, a horrible cry of  
such agony that Sarah nearly leapt into the fire herself to take the novel back out.  
  
But instead she watched him fall to the ground and she moved to circle him. The  
darkness inside her surfaced and she let it. It was best to hide herself from what she was  
about to do. This was, after all, her imagination at work. Jareth no longer understood the  
rules. And she had weakened him... Sarah smiled at the thought, had weakened him with  
his own gift.  
  
*You thought this would have been easier, didn't you?*  
  
A large metal shackle secured around Jareth's right wrist, and he paused in his  
painful cries to look, awe-struck, at the restraint. He tried to reach with his other hand  
and found it also secured completely to the ground. Behind him the fire danced to the  
walls, eating at them as if they were made of dry tinder and not thick blocks of masonry.   
Sarah continued to smile as her eyes radiated the flames in black irises.  
  
*You thought I would be ready to have you back after Brian, didn't you?*  
  
Now the shackles snapped around his ankles, and suddenly Jareth was laid out on  
the stone floor as if he were being crucified. Sarah paused at the point of his feet, where  
they joined together under the restraint and looked at her work as the fires began to circle  
them both.   
  
*But this is my mind, Jareth, and I've taken what I wanted from you* She smiled  
and showed teeth that were somewhat pointed behind her ruby lips. Sarah turned and  
began to walk through the arched doorway that stood proudly behind her.  
  
"Wait!" Jareth called out, his voice wavering and hoarse in the drench of smoke  
that encased him. Sarah turned again and looked at the King, her King. The strange being  
she had made real without even realizing what had happened.  
  
*I don't desire you any longer.*  
  
With that she exited the throne room that she had made for him and a heavy metal  
door snapped down behind her. Sarah stopped just beyond the threshold, feeling her  
breath catch in her throat. She felt smoke biting at her lungs, felt her air being forced  
away and a searing pain eating at her arm. Sarah screamed, clawing at herself as she  
rushed down stairs that ran crooked circles into a deep unknown.  
  
All around Jareth's cries followed her. He screamed and she sobbed, fighting  
away from the invisible fire that enveloped her.  
  
*we are one, you and I* she heard him speak the words again in her mind and  
suddenly even more made sense.   
  
"Enough!" she cried out and collapsed in the middle of her race down the stairs.   
Sarah struck once, colliding with the corner of the stairs and then slumped against the wall  
as an agony of her fall and the fire consumed her.  
  
And then a hand was on her shoulder and Sarah was looking up. Instead of the  
hateful flames over her skin she felt a bitter cold and could scarcely move her head to look  
up. Mimi's kind face smiled back and she touched Sarah's cheek so tenderly that Sarah let  
her eyes slipped closed again.  
  
And she slept.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"Are you sure you won't stay longer?" Mimi inquired, leaning heavily against one  
of the thick posts in her porch.  
  
Sarah stood quietly on the walk, looking at the trees that were freshly bloomed.   
Spring was new and youthful, and everything smelled like rebirth around Mimi's farm.   
Toby was swinging in an old tireswing nearer to the red barn, which had been victim to  
even more neglect since the scene of the last Snowblind.  
  
A single almond blossom drifted in the wind by Sarah and she reached out quickly  
to touch it's delicate petals. "You know, I think that its about time to move on," Sarah  
remarked and grinned up at her aunt who merely shook her head. Sarah adjusted the  
heavy pack looped over her shoulder and turned to walk towards her blue Mustang.   
  
Winter had been hard and cold and unforgiving, in the light of the fresh spring day,  
wearing a T-shirt that let her arms be kissed by the new sun, Sarah could almost forget  
everything. She let her mind briefly drift as Toby ran to her and she hugged him and ran  
her hand over his blonde hair. He would be handsome one day.  
  
"I love you, and I'll come back to see you sometime soon," Sarah promised as she  
forcibly kissed his cheek. Toby backed away, wiping the same spot with the back of his  
hand. But a crooked grin had found his mouth and he hugged Sarah once more.  
  
"Mimi doesn't really know, does she?" Toby asked, when he was near enough to  
Sarah to whisper directly into her ear. Sarah moved out of the embrace and looked at her  
brother- who was nearly as tall as herself. He had sprouted during the winter... the only  
thing to grow. Toby glanced back at his aunt, but a knowing sparkle in his eyes told Sarah  
that her brother understood much more about their Snowblind than he was willing to say.  
  
"You take care," Sarah reminded him.  
  
He nodded, and scratched the back of his neck. Then, moving in once more Toby  
inquired: "It was him, wasn't it? Gabriel?" Sarah shivered at the name being spoken and  
then, after a short while, nodded in affirmation.   
  
"Never think about him, okay? Never let yourself think about him or dream about  
him," Sarah insisted, and didn't stop looking at Toby even after he nodded and then  
galloped up the stairs to stand by Mimi on the porch. Sarah struggled to leave, her fear  
rising within her at the thought of the King.   
  
Sarah waved again and then pulled open the door to her car. She slung the bag  
into the back and then slid herself inside. Mimi and Toby waved once more and then, sat  
down on the swinging bench on the porch. "We are one, but you better never hurt him."  
  
Sarah felt something stir at the back of her mind. She hadn't died, and so.... She  
didn't let the thought complete itself as she pulled onto the little dirt road that led away  
from Mimi's house (as it had always led to before) and then turned her radio on in  
attempts to forget about the disturbing thoughts that had invaded her in her farewell to her  
family.  
  
A Styx song answered the silence in the car and Sarah, padding her hands in beat  
on the steering wheel, glanced briefly into the rear-view mirror. From the reflection, like  
two great icy orbs, she saw his eyes looking back at her. Sarah turned her face away,  
focusing instead on the road as she forcibly made her way across the old bridge.   
  
Then she began to laugh. In herself she could hear him laugh, from the part of her  
mind where she had safely tucked the memories away. She was still alive... and they were  
one. Sarah laughed all the more as she took a turn on to the main road and, thinking only  
a moment about which way to go, she turned to head towards town.  
  
There was a stop she had to make before heading on to her future in "God only  
knew where." She would find a life somewhere, maybe even with her mother. Sarah  
sniffed and then laughed again. Her car swerved once as she wiped the tears from around  
her eyes and then she straightened herself and her driving skills.  
  
Taking one shaking breath she turned off the radio, glad to be back in silence.   
  
The first gas station laid just outside the town limits and Sarah pulled in to the  
helpful smile of the attendant. She opened her door quickly, slammed it shut just as  
hurriedly and then offered him a wink as she brushed past and towards the restroom. He  
caught only a quick glimpse of what she was holding.  
  
When she left with a full tank of gas, in a hurried mix of blind fear and hopeless  
excitation, the gas station attendant merely scratched his head and walked, scuffing, to the  
open door of the women's restroom.   
  
"Young People," was all he muttered as he began to draw the door closed. But a  
cut of light fell on a used container- the same pink and white box. Sighing he entered,  
bent to retrieve it and then shook his head again. "We've got enough of these single  
mothers."   
  
The man tossed the pregnancy test into the trash and let the door close with a  
single thunk.  
  
Overhead the clouds seemed to gather for a spring storm. 


End file.
